The phenomenal success of the recent Gap Groupon deal has opened the doors to a new market for the daily deals purveyor: national and regional retailers who sell locally. This comes from AdAge:
Since last week’s national Gap promotion, Groupon’s phones have been ringing off the hook, said Rob Solomon, president-chief operating officer of Groupon. He expects the company’s next national retail promotion will happen “pretty soon,” with more to come during the fourth quarter.
And now some data cited in the article:
- In an average week the company adds about 500,000 subscribers. In the week after the Gap promotion, it added 750,000 subscribers.
- Gap has nearly half a million customers who now have a reason to go into a Gap store — the coupon isn’t valid online — and the expectation is that those customers will spend more than just $50, likely upward of $75 to $100, Mr. Solomon said.
- The company expects to end the year with between 20 million and 25 million subscribers. And it is on track to generate $400 million in gross sales.
The Gap realizes that an in-store customer is much more valuable than an e-commerce shopper. It will more than make up for the discount in additional items purchased by in-store consumers.
It’s somewhat amazing that Groupon didn’t already have national companies or franchises because they are much easier to sell than SMBs. But Groupon got the hard part done first and now can move on to conquer the nationals.
The thing to keep in mind, whether it’s a national retailer or an independent salon, is that the sales all happen in the store — it’s still all about online to offline.
September 1st, 2010 at 6:59 am
[...] got an email yesterday from someone who told a very different story of the widely celebrated Gap-Groupon deal. The coverage of that event was overwhelmingly positive, including a piece in AdAge that quoted [...]
January 19th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
[...] and pure e-commerce deals like this threaded into the stream of local deals. Recall the Gap’s deal with Groupon; we’re going to see a lot more of those types of offers in the [...]