Google Offers Beta Goes Live

Google has announced via Twitter that its much anticipated deals service “Google Offers” has gone live. Google Offers Beta is kicking off with deals in Portland, Oregon. Google Offers was first announced a few months ago and people obviously predicted that it could be a huge competitor for services like Groupon and LivingSocial.

@GooglePDX
Google PortlandHey Portland! Google Offers BETA is coming. What will Google offer? http://goo.gl/8Kkt9 27 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Upon visiting the Google Offers site, you are prompted with the question “What will Google offer?” Below that you see “Get 50% off or more at place you’ll love.” Users can then subscribe to email alerts in 6 areas: NYC Downtown, NYC Uptown, NYC Midtown, Oakland, Portland and San Francisco.

There is also a link to a page that allows you to give Google your email address and zip code, so they can notify you when they make Google Offers available in your city.

Google Offers is not quite dispensing out deals yet, but they say they will eventually begin sending subscribers “regular emails letting [them] in on amazing offers in [their] area”

Since Offers is not currently available for my city, I subscribed to the Portland, OR Offers service and received this email:

There is no telling yet whether Google Offers will become a direct competitor to Groupon and other daily deals sites. Obviously, the format of subscribing to an email list and receiving offers is dead-on the Groupon M.O. The last few months have been a little rough for the former daily deals leader as LivingSocial has made huge strides in revenues to compete with Groupon. This might add another problem for Groupon, and possibly make them truly regret not selling to Google for $6 billion when it was offered.

There are 7 Comments. Add Yours.

Andover IT
April 21, 2011 at 5:43 pm

Big competition for GroupOn!

The deal sites might be good for getting an influx of customers but are they sustainable?

And who is the actual winner as it seems that the deal sites are the only ones guaranteed to make any money?

Personal opinion is that this could be another Buzz for Google.
Earl George
April 21, 2011 at 9:25 pm

Everyone wants to copy instead of looking at ways to really help businesses. Yes, the daily deal model works, but is it really a good businesses decision for that restaurant to offer $20 in food for $10.00 and then split the revenue with the deal site? Other emerging sites like http://www.freefu.com allow businesses to advertise for free, and don’t require a revenue split. As a business owner, what is the better long term advertising solution?
coxy
April 22, 2011 at 4:46 am

That promotional video’s pretty nice. I’ve never been much of a fan of Groupon, but regardless of that, Google has such an advantage with Google Offers that groupon does – and that’s it’s existing products and services – like the Android platform and Google Maps.

If Google integrates Offers with these services, it’s undoubtedly going to be far more useful than Groupon could be.
Andover IT
April 22, 2011 at 6:10 am

Am not convinced that things like Groupon are a long term strategy for a business – as Earl George says, there is very little money to spread around. It does seem the only people making money on this are the likes of Groupon

Where I can see it working is for a company just starting to get their name out there and maybe try and build their customer base.

As regards Google’s entry into the market, I’m not convinced it won’t be another Google Buzz.
Shamu
April 22, 2011 at 11:58 am

I know it will fail as Google is behind it. I bet there won’t be any customer support. Is the service free?
Nora
April 23, 2011 at 5:35 pm

I think Google Offers is going to see a lot of business in their beta. They are really already popular and they have a lot of attention for their new deals site.

A great site to use to find the deals and sales in your area is http://www.dailydealpool.com. They send you a daily email with the best discounts, so you can always find the best savings to use every day.
ALTASO
April 25, 2011 at 12:39 pm

I’m wondering if increasing competition in this space will benefit business owners somehow. I think Groupon is keeping 50% from the payment and have some minimum payments as well I think. Is Google coming with the same “revenue sharing” model, keep 50% of revenues or less?