Facebook may not have tried to acquire Groupon but the most popular social networking website in the world with more than half billion users will definitely not going to let the opportunity for starting a similar service sleep away. News is out that the social network juggernaut is going to start a service similar to Groupon.
The service will be on-test basis and will be offered in San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas under its already-existing Deals program that allows different businesses to make special offers to its users. Facebook will sell discount offers to its members.
Facebook sales team will work along with nine partners including Plum District, Zozi and Open Table.
Earlier this year, Google rolled its own daily deals service called Google Offers that operates in a similar manner to Groupon.
To keep users on its website, Facebook currently offers a wide range of location-based services including movie rentals. The deals market is the next big trend in the Internet world.
According to BIA/Kelsey, a Chantilly, Virginia-based consulting firm, daily-deals services that targets local businesses will fetch $3.93 billion in revenue by 2015. In 2010, it collected $873 million. Facebook has all the necessary resources and motivation to go after this market. Its large user-base will provide a big boost to such a service.
Related article:
No comments:
Post a Comment