

AmazonLocal - seregine
http://local.amazon.com

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replicatorblog
This is a surprisingly raw launch by a company like Amazon, especially
considering they have a partnership with living social. You sign up and
nothing is available? Even in a fairly large city like Boston? From a launch
POV I'm just surprised they didn't wait til they had some inventory and then
add it to your customized homepage. e.g. "Since you were looking at cookbooks
would you like 50% of 1 $20 gift card at Temple Bar?"

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iamgoat
Deal sites are all about achieving leads so shouldn't their MVP be a nice
website with a way to show your interest by opting in? Amazon's brand will
play a huge part in getting sign-ups, especially since they know our shopping
habits.

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replicatorblog
I totally agree, but I expect more from an MVP from a company like Amazon. For
instance, that "Munch" YC company at least had a couple deals in the bay area
to peruse. Ultimately it is no big deal, I love Amazon, was just surprised
there was almost no content to entice a user.

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far33d
It's unfortunate that "local" has come to mean "groupon clone". There's so
much more to local commerce.

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g123g
If Amazon succeeds with this now then this will be a really good example to
disprove the concept of the first mover (or maybe in this case hundredth
mover) advantage forever.

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simon_weber
Can't say I ever really agreed with the first mover advantage. Looking back,
it's usually someone who comes later who really "gets it right", now that they
have the perspective that the first guy laid out for them. As a first mover,
you've got to be constantly changing to keep up with these newcomers.

~~~
mcobrien
If you can't be first, be best. If you can't be best, be first.

~~~
acangiano
I always say "First or best. Pick at least one."

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oomkiller
Looks like it's Boise only right now? Interesting place to start.

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CWuestefeld
It comes up pre-populated with my address, presumably because I'm logged into
Amazon. But the design doesn't seem to account for me wanting, say, a coupon
for lunch in the city where I _work_.

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zacharypinter
So we've got LivingSocial, Groupon, Google Offers, and now AmazonLocal. Am I
the only one not seeing the point of these coupon sites?

I suppose Groupon's required email address turned me off to the genre early
on.

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drx
>Am I the only one not seeing the point of these coupon sites?

<http://www.evanmiller.org/golden-football.html>

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va_coder
"Groupon provides the mechanism to move businesses and customers over to a
part of the diagram previously regarded as unreachable. It only works because
customers can collectively commit to buying more than they would with a run-
of-the-mill coupon."

But it breaks down when that business fails to increase it's capacity. Case in
point: I used groupon once for a restaurant and the experience was horrible.
The restaurant was completely unprepared for the number of people showing up.
On paper I got $40 bucks worth of food and service for $20 bucks, but the
experience was so bad I wish I had stayed home and saved my $20 bucks.

In my situation the restaurant and Groupon dropped the golden football.

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buro9
I've also seen restaurants offering such deals ask if you're using a GroupOn
voucher before presenting you with a menu, the menu you're then given is not
the same as the usual menu. Items are more expensive (over-priced I would
say), and the selection is narrower.

From a business perspective the failure to convert into repeat business has
long known to be a problem, but now having experienced GroupOn as being a
second class experience I simply won't be using it again.

In fact, the limited experience of GroupOn in our household has been such that
they've successfully made us dubious of the entire offers/group-buying thing
and leave us preferring to get personal service and avoiding the offerings of
GroupOn and all of their competitors.

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tienshiao
Is this with or against livingsocial.com?

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m4tt
It's independent of LivingSocial but is aggregating deals from other companies
(at the bottom of the deal it says with which company, in this case it's LS).

I'm guessing it is going to mix it up by offering deals from other services,
whilst it builds up momentum to offer its own.

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arunsharma
Doesn't make sense though ! I would prefer this concept if they have it on the
amazon.com homepage. I would hate to give my mail address. I have a feeling
this was done in response to Google Wallet.

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lurker19
After a roaring success bringing mail order catalogs online, and then bringing
books themselves online, the followup is... ValuPak online? USA needs more
interesting problems to solve.

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swombat
How utterly shameless! It even looks just like GroupOn... that's... lame...
that's all I can say.

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jfager
One of the knocks on Groupon has always been how easy their product is to
clone, and how the competition in the space will inevitably drive margins
down.

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iaskwhy
It's not that easy to clone a user base though which is the leverage of most
niche sites. Not saying Amazon can't do it, it is Amazon so anything is
possible but it's not a general rule. For example, if I was the one doing a
clone of Groupon I would most probably fail since I lack the resources (sales
people) to do better than them.

~~~
jfager
That's true, but then yet another knock on Groupon is that it's not clear they
actually have any sort of exclusive access to their userbase. It doesn't
really cost a Groupon user anything to also sign up for LivingSocial or
AmazonLocal, and a user looking for good deals actually has the incentive to
sign up for as many of these services as are available (a good deal can come
from anywhere).

There's also the common observation from Groupon advertisers that Groupon
users aren't necessarily particularly desirable customers. They're often deal
hunters who have no interest in becoming regular customers after they've used
their coupon (not that LivingSocial or AmazonLocal users would be any better
in this regard).

Edit: also worth pointing out, this is why I think Square's latest offering
has the potential to knock it out of the park: user and merchant stickiness,
going after loyalty rather than dealhunting, etc.

