Advice on setting up deals website

marley123

HI all, well am in a bit of a hole financially & need to generate more income.
So I am going to set up a deals website targeting a specific market. I have bundles of online experience so with that side of things I am fine however need some help getting it off the ground, web design, etc - also do I register as a sole trader or as a LTD company - I will also be keeping my day job up , so need to do it in the most tax effective way.

Can anyone recommend a business advisor I could chat to - specifically with online experience.

BigGrayKettle

I would be very cautious about setting up a social deals website to be honest, I know there are a few of such websites closing down in Ireland at the moment due to increased competition and a certain level of saturation in the market place. I also read an article recently documenting the decline in numbers of social deals websites in the US.

However I do still think there is potential in this market, but you will need to do something different, and I mean more so than just focusing on a niche or specific product/service category. I don't really have the answer to what this could be myself but I think there is plenty of potential for some innovative thinking in this area.

DCalnan

Hello,

If you contact your local business enterprise board or Chamber of Commerce they often have a list of "mentors" who may be able to advise you further.

Regards

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Most of these deals websites loose money and the intention is to flip them, if your trying to generate quick cash look at the direction your going and go the complete opposite way because that industry has the worst odds of success.

BigGrayKettle

I don't understand how social buying websites, if managed correctly, can't make money. That is of course unless the demand for social buying has decreased as a whole, which I think we are starting to see, or the product/service offerings are rubbish and no one is buying.

The initial outlay is very low and operating costs are extremely low from what I can see. Having ran some social deals with a couple of the main Irish players, I have generated almost 2k in commission fees for same, yet the amount of work from their end in terms of setting up the deal, proof and design, administrative etc is very small.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

BigGrayKettle wrote: »

I don't understand how social buying websites, if managed correctly, can't make money. That is of course unless the demand for social buying has decreased as a whole, which I think we are starting to see, or the product/service offerings are rubbish and no one is buying.

The initial outlay is very low and operating costs are extremely low from what I can see. Having ran some social deals with a couple of the main Irish players, I have generated almost 2k in commission fees for same, yet the amount of work from their end in terms of setting up the deal, proof and design, administrative etc is very small.

The cost per acquisition is huge and there is a chicken and egg scenario. No-one wants to bother dealing with someone who doesn't have a daily active list of at least say 30k, because the take up will be a tiny fraction of 1%. But then no-one wants to sign up to a deal site that doesn't have any deals. People are already bored of getting several emails from the other deal sites, with stuff that doesn't interest them and businesses are bored of running deals that loose them money - so how do you get the punters checking your site or receiving the info daily, especially at the start when you don't have anything to sell. The answer ofcourse is to run the first few months / years at a loss, do deals where you loose money to get people to sign up and talk about you, then run a ton of ads paying at least 20Euro per sign up in order to get enough momentum to reach break even. Groupon operated at a loss for 2.5 years, spending millions to gain market share - and it had first to market advantage. Many others are still at or died before they got past the per-revenue stage.

In fairness I reckon this ship has sailed.