CEO, Interrupted: Crowdsourcing Hot Deals (Fatwallet / Slickdeals)
It must have been 5 or 6 years ago that I first logged onto Fat Wallet’s hot deal forum
and was blown away by the chaos, passion and excitement of bargain-seekers
posting and reviewing the best deals spotted on the net. The voracity
of users towards each other and “evil retailers” was like an art form,
enhanced by the silly user names and propeller-hat avatars. While I was
always a lurker, I absorbed this atmosphere with keen interest, reading
dozens of thread at a time – I felt late to the scene even as an
electronics wholesaler. Here was a demographic not only under-served
but even maligned and mistrusted by the vast majority of the industry.
Lawsuits flying over pre-publication of Black Friday deals, order
cancellations without regard to PR issues, major retailers undertaking
initiatives to stop aggressive discount seekers from participation—it
was a battle, and a complete lack of recognition from the retail
industry that this was a cohesive and powerful demographic to
intentionally cater to. Sure I was observing a vocal minority of the
users (it always is), but man were they ever vocal. I found myself
agreeing with most of the agenda.
It was hilarious entertainment, it was exciting to personally find deals, and it was business opportunity just staring you in the face.
I’ve not kept as abreast of happenings in this space as I would have liked to. Certainly I learned quickly of other collaborative hot deal centers like Slickdeals.net and a few more but I would imagine there are trends and sentiment that I’ve missed.
Do
you use “Hot Deal” Sites? How would you personally rank them today?
What makes a good collaborative deal-site? What sucks about them? Are
there any new ones on the scene?
thanks for your participation
matt
previous entries:
CEO, Interrupted: LiveShopping aka Worldwide Wooting
CEO, Interrupted: Take your protein pills (and put your helmet on)
CEO, Interrupted: Snapster’s unfortunate alter ego
