SMEs to egg on Sydney deals
Sydney-based
small and medium sized merchants are gravitating towards group buying
sites to hold close the un-served customers who are potential bargain
hunters and have yet to catch the Sydney deals.
That
is a buzzword that was not only doing round in the Melbourne360
conference in June in the Australian largest city, but is also
reflecting in the flourishing local daily deals along the southeast coast of the Tasman Sea as well as perhaps in entire Land of Plenty.
No
doubt, national deals constitute over 80 per cent of group buying
offers, local deals are rapidly clawing share and registered growth from
13 per cent in first quarter to 17 per cent in April-June, according to
a research firm Telsyte.
Back to the SME, a top official of a daily deal
company said at the conference that roadside merchants and companies
with small customer base are capitalizing on the social commerce to push
up their sale figures.
Despite
that it is a positive development on the face of it for Aussies
yearning for affordable holiday package to sandstone rock Uluru, hot
balloon ride, or tenpin bowling games, industry analysts lament rowdy
elements are playing havocs with the group buying industry and befooling
novice discount seekers by their despicable bait and switch ploys.
Seemingly
worried over rising numbers of complaints related to fake vouchers and
customers bewailing absence of stocks at point of sale, Billy Tucker,
CEO Cudo, criticized the unfair practice in the daily deals space. He
called for the code of conducts to control such practices.
“A
voluntary code was vital to give customers and merchants confidence,
and to weed out cowboys,” he spoke categorically at Mumbrella Media and
Marketing Conference. Draft code of conduct to regulate the discount
market was also presented at the group buying session and notably backed
by the Australian Direct Marketing Association.
Advocates
of local daily deals consider entry of SMEs as light at the end of
tunnel occupied by small numbers of couponing sites. Just as other
market such as USA is dominated by fortunate two or three daily deal
companies, so out of 50 group buying sites alone eight including Scoopon, Cudo, Living Social, Spreets, Groupon, OurDeal, Deals.com.au, and Ouffer rule the roost in Australia accounting for 90 per cent of daily deals revenue.
Diversity
leads to high numbers of choices to customers especially promotes local
deals that are necessary to throw blessings of discounts at the grass
root level, they argue. Aussies deserve it; after all they are
supporting the industry to reach the mark of 400 to 500 million dollars
soon.
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Tariq Saeedi is an expert writer and editor. He has been
writing for several online and offline publications for seven years. He
holds marketing and journalism degrees, and is currently working for
Group Buying Solution Provider, Dealaboo