Quick update on my LivingSocial deals

R

Richard Grasa

New member
As some may know, I ran a couple deals for express detailing on LivingSocial a while back. While it was very hard work to take care of all these people that bought the deals and I only broke even running the deals, it's now starting to pay off. I've been getting numerous repeat customers that bought the deal and are now happily paying full price for full details. Some of these people have turned into 3 and 4 time repeat customers already. I'd say about 95% of the people that have come back after the deal are the people that take care of their cars and don't mind paying for quality work. It did take some time for people to start repeating, but that's to be expected since most people normally only get their cars detailed every 6 months or so. So all in all I am very glad I ran the deals. Another really nice thing after doing all these details is that it has made me extremely efficient in my detailing and I often surprise myself these days at how quickly I can get a car done with top quality of work done. If you are, or can become set up with a helper to take care of the deals, I would say go for it. You may not make any money off the deals at the time, but come up with a deal that you can break even on and it will pay off big time down the road.
 
Good to hear, Rich.



You bring up a couple of good points here.



1. You learned to become efficient. I must admit I could use some work in this area.



2. Quality work. I think this might be a contributing factor to why many fail to gain repeat business from these deals. You simply can't deliver inferior work simply because they got a deal. Plenty of people want to find a good detailer but don't know where to look for one. When the price is right to try it out they are more willing to give it a shot.





I simply think there are ways to offer a similar deal to potential customers without giving up 25% on top of the 50% discount. The challenge is reaching the audience.
 
Just an FYI for anyone doing these, Living Social just posted something like a $274 million loss and Groupon is in deep trouble too. Would be careful with these - don't see either company being around for too much longer
 
A lot of local papers and news stations are running their own mini-versions of Groupon/LivingSocial. FYI
 
Yeah from what I read a while back it's only a matter of time until these companies go under. I'm glad for that because we won't have to deal with every hack in the area running a deal and giving more of a bad name to our industry, like I had to deal with earlier in the year. Here in CT, one of the local ones is SaveNowCT.com (I ran a deal on there too). They're all over the place. You will typically get a much lower response on the local deal sites as they don't have as many followers, which can be good since you won't get totally slammed like the bigger sites. Also since they are local they are better to deal with.
 
That's great! I advise everyone not to do deals like that if they don't have a legitimate plan to get through it. I can point to a handful of detailing companies that went under or changed their name to avoid the backlash from the $ and trust they lost through these deals. One guy sold over 600 details and was telling clients he books appts once a month and told them when their appt was. Wow...



Groupon and Living Social will go under shortly because they are mismanaged and ran strictly for huge profits. No business lasts without customer loyalty, and charging 50% commissions on 50% discounted deals is robbery. Probably why less than 8% would ever do it again, most of them in the Spa/Massage area at that. Weird.



Either way, I'm glad it worked out for you. The only positive story I've ever heard from these businesses.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top