If you're like me, your morning email inbox is filled with a variety of "daily deals.' I had to create a filter for my Gmail account just to organize them (confession: my Gmail account currently has 37 unread emails in the Daily Deal folder). I get them from a variety of sources, including Groupon, Amazon and Living Social. Among my daily deal purchases were a $230 car dealing package for 40 bucks (though I did have to kick in an extra $25 because I drive a black car), $40 dollars worth of Cuban food for $20, a $100.00 sushi dinner for $50 and I still have 50 dollars worth of gourmet sausages to pick up that I only paid $25 for -- though I do wonder what I'm going to do with fifty bucks worth of sausages. Oh well ...
For those unfamiliar, daily deals are goods and services provided by local and online merchants at a discount price. Depending on which vendor(s) you subscribe or pay attention to -- you'll get an email every day inviting you to purchase anything from meals to a massages from automotive services to travel packages at discount prices. The deals typically come with both a purchase expiration date (Four hours, thirty-nine minutes left to buy!!!) and a use by date (typically one year from the date of purchase).
Last week, Marketplace a radio program produced and distributed by American Public Media and also heard internationally via the American Forces Radio & Television Service, did a piece on what some call an "addiction" to daily deals. They spoke to our own Assistant Professor of Marketing Suzanne Shu for her take on daily deals. She said:
You see something that is just an unbelievable discount to you. And you think, 'Wow that is so great that I can get this so cheap.' And you get more excited about the discount than about the actual product itself.
They then asked Shu about the motivation for purchasing these daily deals:
So you sit there asking yourself, 'Do I want to let it pass me by, and two days later regret the fact that I didn't go for that great deal when I had the chance? Or do I just want to go ahead and grab it and then figure out how to use it later?'
Read the transcript of the story here.
Listen to the discussion here:
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