2012: 'A year of change for the daily deals sector'

Submitted by admin on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 2:00pm

Buyometric predicts the UK online daily deals sector will see increased growth, more competition and improved targeting in the year ahead.

London, United Kingdom (PRWEB) January 05, 2012

An estimated seven million people in the UK subscribe to daily deal websites. But, what can they expect to see in the year ahead?

In December 2011, Buyometric, the UK’s largest aggregator of daily deals revealed that over half (52 percent) of all subscribers to online discount deal providers receive five or more deal emails per day, and that 50 percent of those who receive a high volume of emails think this is too many (1). Paul Fisher, founder of Buyometric, comments:

“There has been much talk of a bubble in the daily deals sector, with email fatigue being cited as a possible trigger. It’s clear that daily deal providers need to make some changes in the way they reach out to their customers. While we don’t see any major fallout on the horizon, there will be many changes in the daily deals sector over the coming 12 months.”

Fisher offers his predictions for the year ahead:

Sector growth:

  •          Overall, we expect further growth in consumers’ use of daily deal sites. The pressure on household budgets will increase throughout 2012, with rising unemployment and the fact that pay rises almost certainly won’t keep up with the increasing cost of living. It is likely, however, that usage will switch from impulse purchasing to savvy shopping.

  •          Even if the overall number of UK subscribers to daily deal sites does not grow, we would expect to see sector growth of at least 20-30 percent. Many consumers have been ‘sitting on the sidelines’ without having as yet made a purchase. Our research also identified that whilst only 69 percent of subscribers to daily deal websites had already bought a deal, 96 percent said they planned to make a purchase in the next 12 months.

  •          For the larger daily deal providers, we will also see continued expansion in their areas of coverage, and an increase in the number of deals available across the categories. Large areas of the UK remain un-served by any local deal providers; providing fertile ground for new subscribers.

  •          Given the large number of smaller, niche players entering the sector over the past 12 months, we would also expect to see more consolidation as larger players seek to grow their user base through acquisition.

    • Targeting:

    •          Men are ‘turned off’ by the untargeted nature of the main deal providers and so new male focused offerings, or better targeting by existing providers will be necessary to engage this group. This could provide a major new market in 2012.

  •          Very targeted daily deal sites will continue to emerge over the coming months, often being tied to an existing community website. Look for hobby niches such as golf (e.g. Daily Golf Deals), or demographic niches such as mother and baby. Their survival will depend on robust marketing strategies.

  •          The main daily deal sites will also start to offer some limited levels of personalisation, however it will still be in their interests to present their users with as many deals as possible, on the off-chance that they will be interested.

    • Aggregation:

    •          We expect continued growth of the aggregation sector in 2012 as users of daily deal sites get bored of receiving several emails a day and look at ways of consolidating the information about deals into one place. Expect to see larger international aggregators extending their reach into the UK, and vice versa.

    Fisher concludes: “Consumers will find themselves presented with daily deal buying opportunities across myriad websites in 2012, extended beyond just the daily deal providers and aggregators.

    “Offering tailored daily deals to users is proving to be a successful monetisation strategy for community websites and mailing list owners. So far from disappearing, we predict they will become more prevalent in 2012.”

    [1] Buyometric used SurveyMonkey to survey 1,011 subscribers to daily deal email alerts, not limited to the Buyometric subscriber base. The survey was advertised using Facebook and all responses were collected between 21 November and 2 December 2011. 97 percent of respondents completed the full survey.

    Notes to editors

    About Buyometric:

    Buyometric (http://www.buyometric.com) is the smarter way to find daily deals – sourcing offers from over 50 national and regional UK deal websites, and summarising them in one personalised email a day.

    Obsessed with the individuality of the site’s subscribers, the Buyometric team does absolutely everything it can to work out what users want, from running them through picture quizzes to postcode analysis. The system continuously learns what subscribers want by monitoring their actions on the website and assimilating this into a rich ‘Buyometric’ profile, unique to each user. This obsession is paying off:

    Buyometric has some of the highest customer engagement figures in the industry, highlighted by its email open rates and sales conversions.

    Buyometric also helps its subscribers to get the most out of daily deal sites by assisting with any problems they have buying, or redeeming daily deal vouchers. And, as a result, the company has a growing loyal subscriber base.

    The business was launched in October 2010 after founder, Paul Fisher, set out to solve the problem of untargeted deal emails. Buyometric was profitable within eight months of launch and is based near London Bridge.

    For further information, interviews and photography, please contact:

    Katrina Suppiah/Lisa Lewis at Publicité

    Tel: + 44 (0)20 8543 6582

    Email: k.suppiah(at)publicite(dot)co.uk/l.lewis(at)publicite(dot)co.uk

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    For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/1/prweb9077850.htm