Living Social

Garry Dean

Garry Dean

New member
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Messages
1,796
Reaction score
0
After seeing the recent posts about the horrors of Living Social I decided to share my experience.

I got a phone call the other day from a Living Social rep. To make a long story a little shorter, I asked a lot of questions and she gave answers.

She explained how the program works and my immediate thought was, NO WAY! Im not going to work for 1/4 of my standard price just to draw in new business and I have to split advertised price 50/50 with you...? WHAT? NO WAY! Split the money they do bring in 50/50...? They get that money for doing what?

I then thought, well, maybe I could reach a lot of new people about my new product line this way. A quick second thought also answered a NO WAY! Work for 1/4 my usual price... NO WAY! I work hard to provide a quality service. At 1/4 the price and the potential to get more of those junk jobs than I can handle as a one man show... Again, NO WAY! This can only be bad as I would piss more people off than I would make happy by being so backed up.

She told me I would need to raise my prices on my website by 100% so that they can advertise them at half price to make it seem like they were getting a deal... Can you say MISLEADING! WOW! They are lying to their customers. I figured it was a scam anyways.

After an hour on the phone with her I decided she had wasted enough of my time and I told her I would take a day or so and think it over and give her a call back.

Again, NO WAY should I or anyone who values their image or business name do this. I personally feel it is a bad idea. Make up your own mind. I just wanted to share my story. Below you will find the email I sent her last night.

Rachel,

I have thought about this situation long and hard and have come to the conclusion that it is not good for me, my business, or my image. I have worked very hard to build my reputation and I feel that this will have a negative effect on how people perceive me. I am not a discount detailer and I do not want to be known as such. I appreciate your consideration. I am sure you understand. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you,
Garry Dean
 
Good job on standing your grounds Garry! These customers from living social will be cheap and demanding customers anyway who really don't understand what proper and high quality detailing is. They will bring such a crazy and poorly kept car that will make you work extra hard. After a couple of weeks, the car will have deteriorated quick enough because they don't know any better.

And I knew it!!! A lot of "SALE" advertisements are scams!! They say that the item is discounted only to find out that they raised the prices before doing so.. Wow that's just being flat out dishonest. I'm sure they wouldn't think of it that way. It's their "marketing." F that.
 
Why not just raise your retail price to compensate the difference?
 
Detailing is not like offering haircuts or poodle baths...you never know what you are going to face. How can you possibly offer a volume service at a set cost before you ever see the car? Unless you are just washing and doing a quick wax where expertese is not really a factor...I can't imagine using such a service.
 
Yeah, for her to say "raise your pricing 100%" seems very unprofessional IMO and something that would probably catch up to you in the long run. The woman I spoke to about a similar program that a local new channel runs on their site, said something a little bite "less bad" about pricing. She said that since I don't really have package pricing listed anywhere that I could work the pricing I use for the coupon deal; not one way or the other as far a bad or good comment IMO.
I too am a one man show and didn't want to run into the possibility that I have more people than I can handle trying to redeem the coupon at once. And without steady flow of regular paying jobs, you will be losing a lot of potential profit, with no guarantee of repeat customers or having people add-on to the detail that the coupon is covering. The one thing that I thought about is offering a set package that I know I can make a needed amount to of money to cover product cost and some time, at least. Then trying to have people upgrade the package/add-on to the detail to suit their vehicles needs. But, not knowing how people will respond to my proposal to upgrade the detail make me that much more uncertain of a deal like this.
I think a knowing how people/other detailers fair from these coupon deals would make it an easier choice.
 
Flash Gordon said:
No one would be forcing the individual to purchase your services. I think it would help weed out the rift raft as well, IMHO
Click to expand...

I don't think Garry has problems with riff-raff as it stands right now, and obviously he's got happy customers... Why gouge those retail customers and potentially drive them away with higher "regular" prices just so you can offer an LS/Groupon deal and not go out of business as a result?

It would be even more suspect to raise prices just for the duration of a sale/promo.
 
Marc08EX said:
Good job on standing your grounds Garry! These customers from living social will be cheap and demanding customers anyway who really don't understand what proper and high quality detailing is. They will bring such a crazy and poorly kept car that will make you work extra hard. After a couple of weeks, the car will have deteriorated quick enough because they don't know any better.

And I knew it!!! A lot of "SALE" advertisements are scams!! They say that the item is discounted only to find out that they raised the prices before doing so.. Wow that's just being flat out dishonest. I'm sure they wouldn't think of it that way. It's their "marketing." F that.
Click to expand...

I see this all too often. I still remember when circuit city tanked and they were having their liquidation sales. I found my 46' flat screen I had bought at frys a few weeks before. I forget the exact numbers. But it claimed to be something like 25% off even though the price was still a good 150-200 dollars more than what I payed at frys without a discount. There were literally no deals to be had other than on videogames and dvds. All the electronics were marked up and then discounted to either the regular or an inflated price.
 
I agree 100%. My wife and I talked briefly on the pros/cons for these discount sites. There are some businesses that can flourish with these sales and others will "paint themselves into a corner". If you check what business are showcased on these promos, you'll find they're generally restaurants, vacations, spa treatments, etc. offering certificates for half of the purchase value. These are the kind of businesses that have major up-sells and larger selection of services/products. People will likely spend way more than the amount of the certificate they bought which cushions their discount. Since I strictly offer headlight restores, I have nothing else to help me recover what I've discounted. Plus the huge cut LS/Groupon take is outrageous. I've been contacted a couple of times by them but have stopped returning their voicemails.
 
"I am not a discount detailer."

I couldn't agree more!
 
the groupon and similar business models were thought up by the same people that brought you collateralized debt obligations...

we all know how successful that turned out to be
 
I ran through the drive thru at McDonalds and what did I see... A sign that said to mention before ordering if you had a living social discount coupon.

Seems strange that a place like the would use living social.

I think it's a bad idea to use it for detailing. You'll end up losing money for people who will bring you a mess to clean up. It's too much of a possibility that they will only be a one time customer too. It would be worth it if you could be sure they would return but I think most of them will be people who are looking for a deal and wouldn't have any detail work done normally
 
C. Charles Hahn said:
I don't think Garry has problems with riff-raff as it stands right now, and obviously he's got happy customers... Why gouge those retail customers and potentially drive them away with higher "regular" prices just so you can offer an LS/Groupon deal and not go out of business as a result?

It would be even more suspect to raise prices just for the duration of a sale/promo.
Click to expand...

Well, it was Garry that was recentley considering advertising with them, no?. .

As far as goughing his regular customers, who said anything about that? I was reffering to the ppl seeking deals on L/S. Their not going to be paying retail anyway, right?.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, these social/coupon groups are a horrible idea. I feel bad for any detailer duped into doing it.
 
yes but if any of those customers do come back (which is what you are hoping for by doing this) what's the first thing they will see?

Oh, the regular price is X? I thought it was Y but I guess it was just jacked up so I thought I was getting a better deal than I was (remember, not everyone knows that these sites take 50% of the money for doing very little).

Might cause some friction between you and your new regular...

If you have the man power, then these deals are good for something simple you can knock out in under an hour each (exterior only -- wash and spray wax -- maybe an 8 minute clay job). And you definitely have to limit the number you sell.

It's not like these things are one shot deals. As these companies get more desperate (sounds like they are on their way if they are cold calling businesses), they will eventually allow you to set lower limits (if enough businesses tell them to shove it when they try to dictate how many deals they have to offer at such deep discounting) so you can try it out and if you don't have a good experience, then you don't do it again.
 
Flash Gordon said:
Well, it was Garry that was recentley considering advertising with them, no?. .

As far as goughing his regular customers, who said anything about that? I was reffering to the ppl seeking deals on L/S. Their not going to be paying retail anyway, right?.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make... let me put it another way:

1) Decide to advertise on L/S.

2) Raise "retail" prices listed in order for the "discount" price in the L/S deal to still be profitable.

3) Sell and book a bunch of L/S customers at the "discount" rate.

4) Have regular customer who did not buy the L/S deal come back to discover that the listed "retail" prices they were used to paying have increased substantially.

5) Have that customer decide to go elsewhere because the new list price is outside their budget or otherwise unreasonably high.

6) Realize you just lost a regular customer because you decided selling a bunch of L/S coupons to one-time customers you'll never see again was a better idea.


To me, it just doesn't add up. Unless you want to make your entire revenue stream about nabbing bargain shoppers on L/S and similar sites, jacking up regular retail prices can backfire by making you inaccessible to customers coming from other sources that are unaware of your discounts.
 
C. Charles Hahn said:
I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make... let me put it another way:

1) Decide to advertise on L/S.

2) Raise "retail" prices listed in order for the "discount" price in the L/S deal to still be profitable.

3) Sell and book a bunch of L/S customers at the "discount" rate.

4) Have regular customer who did not buy the L/S deal come back to discover that the listed "retail" prices they were used to paying have increased substantially.

5) Have that customer decide to go elsewhere because the new list price is outside their budget or otherwise unreasonably high.

6) Realize you just lost a regular customer because you decided selling a bunch of L/S coupons to one-time customers you'll never see again was a better idea.


To me, it just doesn't add up. Unless you want to make your entire revenue stream about nabbing bargain shoppers on L/S and similar sites, jacking up regular retail prices can backfire by making you inaccessible to customers coming from other sources that are unaware of your discounts.
Click to expand...

The only thing I missed your point on was #4

Are you talking about existing customers?
 
C. Charles Hahn said:
Correct.

Well, sort of correct.... I would include "referrals from existing customers" as well.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't fret about that at all

By the time you devide the price in half and L/S gets their 15%, its going to equal the same as what they've been paying, no?

I would think your existing customers would be able to figure out what your trying to accomplish and would probally be secretly giving you one of these > :dblthumb2:

As far as your existing customers reffering someone to you, what the hell would they be doing seeking someone else on L/S anyway?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top