This is an interesting venture for GrabOne, and I am sure they will have big things coming soon as they line up 1-Day fair and square in their sights. If you missed it already, 1-DayOut closed shop a few weeks back, so they can concentrate on what they do best (being physical products).

The daily deal and group buying markets are a very crowded space in NZ at the moment with some big international players landing in the market recently (think Groupon and LivingSocial), however GrabOne internal stat’s show that they are far exceeding the sales of any of their nearest competitors by a massive margin, and I don’t see this letting up anytime soon, and they have the fan base on Twitter and Facebook well covered.

I think the next 6-12 months will be a make it or break it for some of the smaller sites out there, and I expect to see a lot of the smaller sites dropping off the radar.

Aaron.

Current deals

GrabOne Store (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - Midnight

Blue Light Nintendo Wii Charging Station

$24.00

Factory Recertified Sony Voice Recorder

$49.00

Luka and the Fire of Life Book

$15.00

Schwinn GPS Trainer & Heart Rate Watch

$199.00

Starting at $79 for Baksana Assorted Duvet Covers (value up to $320)
Update your bedroom with a gorgeous, stunning, stylish duvet cover set. Starting at just $79 for a Single, King Single, Queen, King or Super King Duvet Cover Set. Choose from six different styles at assorted prices. High... More...

$129.00

Check out the event on Facebook

Imogen Heap

So why not use a groupon.co.nz domain name? Those Leibovich brothers (who are cyber squatters) I mentioned earlier in the year still have their mitts on on the .co.nz domain. Read more about that here if you are interested (they accepted then rejected a $286,000 offer from Groupon for the domain!). They have launched under the name StarDeals in Australia, but of course that name here is used by FlyBuys for an annual promotion they run.

They are currently looking for sales consultants to scout out some deals for them – if you are thinking about applying for a job then there is some interesting information on their US site about how not to get hired at Groupon – and these are probably pretty valid things to note if applying for any job!

So, watch this space, and we will let you know when they go live. I am sure they will have some pretty good launch deals as well, esp with the very deep and big pockets of their US parent.

Groupon NZ

TreatMe.co.nz Server 500 slip up

After having a big build up in the social media space prior to launch, they started getting a lot of feedback on Twitter and Facebook – remembering this is all happening at between 11pm and 1am, when most sane people are snugly tucked up in bed sleeping and not thinking about what’s for lunch or dinner tomorrow.

TreatMe Twitter Feedback

Unfortunately, soon after launch, things started going down hill:

TreatMe Twitter Fail

(view the full @TreatMe stream at http://twitter.com/#!/search/treatme_nz)

There was a similar response on their Facebook page, with lots of unhappy customers. Their fan base grew from around 500 fans prior to midnight to over 1500 by the morning – although some full page advertising would have helped them along.

There were some successes however in the first hour, in fact by 1am over 3000 burgers had been purchased already, and a little after 8am, they sold out of all 20,000 burgers. TreatMe seem to be getting into the social space quite well, with their Twitter and Facebook activity quite high during the launch – lets hope they keep that up, and lets hope they address some of the negative feedback they received during the launch, rather than constant bragging and re-tweeting their successes. They pretty much stopped responding to the bad, and only commented on the good – not a bad thing, but they annoyed a lot of people last night (including myself!)

I am happy to report however that after well over 20 attempts to purchase (I have now memorised my credit card details!) I successfully purchased a burger for myself and another as a gift, and was a huge sigh of relief to see this finally appear:

TreatMe Success!

How did your first purchase at TreatMe go?

Current deals

Treat Me (Wellington) 

 

Sale cut off time - Midnight

$7 for a 1 Hour Single or $10 for a 1 Hour Double Kayak Hire from Days Bay Boatshed
2 options to explore the beautiful Days Bay: Pay just $7 for 1 hour single kayak hire. Pay just $10 for 1 hour double kayak hire. Conditions Vouchers valid from Feb 07, 2012 to Apr 30, 2012. Limit: 10 for you and 10 gift... More...

$7.00

Treat Me (Auckland) 

 

Sale cut off time - Midnight

$44 for a Cut, Blow Wave, Treatment and Head Massage at Rococo Hair Salon (value $115)
Massive savings on a boutique salon experience Only senior stylists One person assigned to your entire appointment Conditions Vouchers valid from Feb 08, 2012 to May 09, 2012. Limit: 1 for you and 1 gift for another. Boo... More...

$44.00

So what does this mean for the group buying space? Only time will tell really. GrabOne seem to have the market pretty well covered locally.. Australian giant Cudo is preparing for a launch in NZ soon, with TV advertising now taking place. Spreets and Groupy are still going strong. The worlds largest (and first) group buying/coupon site is Groupon, and they are currently preparing for a launch in Australia – will they also expand to NZ? Again, only time will tell. The market does seem to be getting quite saturated however, and there is only so much consumers can handle before anything else just becomes noise in the background.

Regardless on the amount of group buying sites, TreatMe appears to be launching with a deal from Burger Fuel, and if you sign up now you can be in the draw to win one of three iPhones, so at the least you might get a good burger for cheap, and who can complain about that!

Check them out now at www.treatme.co.nz, follow them on Twitter @treatme_nz, or like them on Facebook

Every week day and weekend they have some great prices on wine at heavily reduced prices. Run by the same friendly folk who run WineSale.co.nz (New Zealand’s most successful internet wine company), you will find wine and liquor at prices on their site that you will not find anywhere else in New Zealand. Delivery is charged at a flat fee per case, aiming to get your wine to you within three days of your order. All wine is dispatched by Lastdrinks.co.nz through their customer service centre in Wellington – so you will not find yourself dealing with any anonymous third party.

Current deals

LastDrinks.co.nz (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - 10:00

Mariner (Marlborough) Pinot Noir 2009
P>Mariner (Marlborough) 2009 Pinot NoirCombining the best Pinot Noir grapes from Marlborough and the best of Nelson makes this a beautiful Pinot. Full bodied with cherries and strawberries with hints of oak. -->... More...

$15.99

Current deals

So, what have we added today?

• FirstIn have branched out and now have FirstInKids and FirstInHome under their umbrella. They ditched their online eCommerce store earlier in the year to focus solely on daily deals, and have now just broadened their reach a bit with the new websites.

• Have added five new group buying sites Cudo, LetsGetIt, Wowcha, DealEater and GetADeal. 
  Cudo is backed my Microsoft and based out of Australia, but are not live yet. 
  LetsGetIt is currently Auckland only, with more regions planned soon
  Wowcha is currently Palmerston North only, unknown if there are more regions coming
  DealEater is  Wellington only, with Auckland and Christchurch coming at some stage.
  GetADeal is not live yet (launch is 17th Jan according to their site), and will be deals for Christchurch/Canterbury

• And one other daily deal site EzyDeal which have three daily deals on general merchandise.

• Added Mr Vintage, as they have been doing daily deals on t-shirts for a while now

So a lot of new sites, and a lot more products to see and things to do as well. Just in time for Christmas too!

Thoughts/feedback about these (or any other sites?) Feel free to add to our comments section

Current deals

Cudo (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - 11:00

This one day sale site is not currently being monitored

Ezy Deal (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - Midday

This one day sale site is not currently being monitored

Current deals

Grab One Bottle (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - Midnight

$60 for 6 1L bottles of Sangria Tarrakuna

$60.00

$60 for 6 bottles of Greylands Belle Rose 10

$60.00

$60 for a 6 bottle case of three Chardonnays

$60.00

$60 for a 6 bottle mixed case of 3 Barbecue-Friendly Red Wines (value of $117.96) - That's just $10 a bottle for these smooth tasty Reds!
49% off three stunning red wines! Hard to beat those big, flavours when paired with barbequed red meat! Founded in 2000 near Muriwai, north of Auckland, Waimarie Wines is owned by viticulturalist Stephen Nobilo and his p... More...

$60.00

Current deals

Daily Beat (Nationwide) 

 

Sale cut off time - 13:00

Do That Performed by Eastmusikgroup Feat. Young Sid

Free!