Google announced that it has extended its Google Offers offering into five new markets: Austin, Boston, Washington D.C., Denver and Seattle.
The news comes shortly after Facebook decided to pull its Deals product (though the company is keeping its Check-in deals around). Yelp has also cut a number of its Deals positions, indicating less emphasis on this part of its business.
Groupon – the daddy of the daily deal – is going through some struggles. It has reportedly had to postpone its IPO as the SEC questions the company about a recently leaked memo from CEO Andrew Mason aimed at boosting employee morale in the face of negative press. Hitwise recently reported that Groupon’s traffic has declined by 50% this summer, while rival LivingSocial’s has increased by 27%.
Google has not offered Offers in too many markets yet, but this new expansion is an indication that the product is not going anywhere – at least not yet – despite Google’s shutting down of a number of other products.
Google is serious about deals. You may recall that they offered a reported $6 billion for Groupon last year, which Groupon declined. Google proceeded then to build its own version, which has tons of potential for success simply given Google’s portfolio of products that it could be integrated with – namely search, paid search, and Place Pages, not to mention Google Wallet. It’s already integrated with Google Shopper for Android.
Last week, Google even advertised an offer on its home page.
Google debuted Offers in the these five new cities with deals at Juan in a Million in Austin, Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Cambridge, Amsterdam Falafelshop in D.C., Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, and The Seattle Aquarium.
These offers will be redeemable on Thursday.
