LivingSocial any one here doing this ?

[Mary at Bridgewater Inn and Cottage]

Just got a e-mail from Living Social, etc, etc. Some BnB's here have done this but none now. What experience has anyone had with them ?
Always seems like tons of work, but a lot of $$$$$$ also.

 

[egoodell]

I got one too Mary. They are like Groupon and there is no way I'm going to discount for them. I don't discount for me! Don't need them to book.

 

[Tom]

As with Grou[on, they won't advertise unless it is a deal, so you need to give some major discount.
Then they take 50% of the money. Maybe you can negotiate that down to ... 40%, but you are still getting maybe 35 % of your normal rates.
Too steep for me.

 

[Arks]

I suspect when you go after the crowd who are just looking for steep discounts, you're asking for trouble, bringing in the Motel 6 crowd and PITAs.

 

[EmptyNest]

Dont waste your time or money! They are on the outs as far as
i am concerned. losing lots of cash and trying to convince people to bail them out.
Grp on probably better, but still not worth giving it away when you are such a small property. Our local big place..does it all the time to pull in people, but they still lose their shirts on it.

 

[Generic]

Okay, first they ask you to discount by 50% on your rate and then they offer you at most 65% of that. So, if you rate is $100, you discount to $50 and then they give you $32.50. Really. That's 32.5c on the dollar. You could just put out a special offer for half price on Facebook and still make more money with it. Yes, they have a large mailing list.... but is it worth losing that much?
There is a good reason that this websites are dying. It's the Entertainment book, but you have to prepay for the discount.... and then leave it on your books forever!

 

[Arks]

Okay, first they ask you to discount by 50% on your rate and then they offer you at most 65% of that. So, if you rate is $100, you discount to $50 and then they give you $32.50. Really. That's 32.5c on the dollar. You could just put out a special offer for half price on Facebook and still make more money with it. Yes, they have a large mailing list.... but is it worth losing that much?
There is a good reason that this websites are dying. It's the Entertainment book, but you have to prepay for the discount.... and then leave it on your books forever!.

So, if you rate is $100, you discount to $50 and then they give you $32.50. Really.

And 100% of the $67.50 you give up comes out of your own pocket, because all your expenses, utilities, insurance, mortgage, supplies, are still charging you 100% of their regular rate. The discount all comes out of your profit.
You'd need to be routinely keeping about 3/4 of your gross income as clear profit for this deal to benefit you.
Of course, the hope is that you're creating repeat customers who will pay full rate next time, but this type of customer doesn't come back unless you offer deep discounts every time!

 

[Generic]

Okay, first they ask you to discount by 50% on your rate and then they offer you at most 65% of that. So, if you rate is $100, you discount to $50 and then they give you $32.50. Really. That's 32.5c on the dollar. You could just put out a special offer for half price on Facebook and still make more money with it. Yes, they have a large mailing list.... but is it worth losing that much?
There is a good reason that this websites are dying. It's the Entertainment book, but you have to prepay for the discount.... and then leave it on your books forever!.

So, if you rate is $100, you discount to $50 and then they give you $32.50. Really.

And 100% of the $67.50 you give up comes out of your own pocket, because all your expenses, utilities, insurance, mortgage, supplies, are still charging you 100% of their regular rate. The discount all comes out of your profit.
You'd need to be routinely keeping about 3/4 of your gross income as clear profit for this deal to benefit you.
Of course, the hope is that you're creating repeat customers who will pay full rate next time, but this type of customer doesn't come back unless you offer deep discounts every time!
.

These are NOT generally going to be repeat customers, which is exactly the problem. These are bargain seekers.
There are 3 types of visitors, if you boil it down... business people (work), holiday people (leisure) and "profe$$ional" people. So, we are down to two, business people and holiday people.
Then we need to break them down into the 5 groupings:
Loyal, Impulse, Needs, Wandering and Discount
What we want are the loyal, the impulse spend good money on the here and now. The wandering are going here and there, they aren't sure what they want, but it's the experience. The needs have to be in a certain place at a certain time and have a certain set of amenities. And finally the discount care only about the price and hold absolutely no loyalty whatsoever unless the price is good.
To put this in other words, the big department store shopper, the see it now shopper, the determined shopper, the walk around the mall shopper and the black Friday shopper.