Grabone Closing Down

byronbay2

What a shame - 24 people to lose their jobs. I'm a bit surprised, I have to say, I thought it was a successful business. I bought loads of vouchers from them over the years and never had a problem.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/inm-announces-winding-down-of-coupon-business-grabone-34183485.html

L1011

The voucher / deals site industry is busted; the providers won't give them the 100% markup required and people have become massively wary of service vouchers (restaurants/hotels/beauty) due to the difficulty claiming them. Groupon will be the last one standing and I expect it to shrink hugely.

ScouseMouse

L1011 wrote: »

The voucher / deals site industry is busted; the providers won't give them the 100% markup required and people have become massively wary of service vouchers (restaurants/hotels/beauty) due to the difficulty claiming them. Groupon will be the last one standing and I expect it to shrink hugely.

I agree, but that didnt stop grabone sending me an email this morning giving me 5 euro credit to spend. I followed the link and got the splash page about closing down. Not very clever.

the groutch

the daily deals market has been doomed for a long time, people see through the BS and fake RRPs, most of the products or services can be gotten for the same price without jumping through hoops.

ScouseMouse

Some are ok. I like buying the thunder road vouchers. Used one last saturday.

Greenmachine

There are some occasional deal to be had on had on these type of sites, but sometime they offer price of something are 50% higher than the price on amazon.co.uk with free super saver delivery.

Acara

L1011 wrote: »

The voucher / deals site industry is busted; the providers won't give them the 100% markup required and people have become massively wary of service vouchers (restaurants/hotels/beauty) due to the difficulty claiming them. Groupon will be the last one standing and I expect it to shrink hugely.

You should check out Pigsback.com twitter. They posted last week that they have been delivering a quality experience since 2000 and are outdoing the US giant Groupon at this stage.

Acara

Acara wrote: »

You should check out Pigsback.com twitter. They posted last week that they have been delivering a quality experience since 2000 and are outdoing the US giant Groupon at this stage.

Sounds like the BS the grouch mentioned in his post. What I would love to know is how they make their money because all these sites offer the same stuff again and again really and how many spa days does anyone want and as for teeth whitening and that stupid skooter thing please give us a break!!!!!

L1011

Acara wrote: »

You should check out Pigsback.com twitter. They posted last week that they have been delivering a quality experience since 2000 and are outdoing the US giant Groupon at this stage.

Loss of 200k in 2013 (last accounts filed), accumulated "profits" of -13M.

https://www.duedil.com/company/IE320005/empathy-marketing-limited/financials

They might be selling more than Groupon but at those figures its not a great boast!

Acara

L1011 wrote: »

Loss of 200k in 2013 (last accounts filed), accumulated "profits" of -13M.

https://www.duedil.com/company/IE320005/empathy-marketing-limited/financials

They might be selling more than Groupon but at those figures its not a great boast!

God took a look at those figures and shocking. How can they still be around with debts like that.

L1011

Acara wrote: »

God took a look at those figures and shocking. How can they still be around with debts like that.

Constant cashflow helps hugely in situations like that.

Acara

L1011 wrote: »

Constant cashflow helps hugely in situations like that.

I was at the launch of pigsback in 2000 and what struck me was that it was all based on investors money and 'big notions' really. The site isn't attracting any new companies really so where does the constant cash flow come.

Greenmachine

Pigsback was interesting when it first started. I stopped using it years ago, and only retreived my account for the Marie Keating 5k/10k, whose timing was supposed to be done by precision timing.
I sure pick em.

Acara

Greenmachine wrote: »

Pigsback was interesting when it first started. I stopped using it years ago, and only retreived my account for the Marie Keating 5k/10k, whose timing was supposed to be done by precision timing.
I sure pick em.

Why did you need to retrieve your account from pigsback to run in a race whose only objective should be to raise money for cancer research.
Given the state of pigsback's books would make you wonder about the true motives behind the 'altruistic' behaviour.

Acara

Greenmachine wrote: »

There are some occasional deal to be had on had on these type of sites, but sometime they offer price of something are 50% higher than the price on amazon.co.uk with free super saver delivery.

Just like the groutch said it's all BS and fake RRP's. Any hotel let's face it will give u a good deal off peak time!!

sweetie

Used grabone a fair bit for lunch deals, thought they were a pretty well run site.

cruhoortwunk

Theyre mostly shít, no refunds or anything but Pigsback do give full refunds within 14 days and 70% refund closer to the expiry
Makes them more attractive to me

Greenmachine

Acara wrote: »

Why did you need to retrieve your account from pigsback to run in a race whose only objective should be to raise money for cancer research.
Given the state of pigsback's books would make you wonder about the true motives behind the 'altruistic' behaviour.

Purchase for the event had to be made through Pigsback from what I could tell. Lord knows why.

Acara wrote: »

Just like the groutch said it's all BS and fake RRP's. Any hotel let's face it will give u a good deal off peak time!!

Wasn't motivated by a RRP. I was due a 10k race as part of my training plan and this fitted in nicely.
Unfortunately not running much lately but hoping to turn that around once I get rid of this bronchitis.

andywozhere

Here are a few more that have bitten the dust over the last few years:

BoardsDeals
BagaDeal.ie
bundlebee.ie
dafadeals.com
crazydeals.ie
dealbuzz.ie
foffit.com
girliedeals.ie
gr8fish.ie
justtreats.ie
maddeal.com
todaysdeals.ie
topdeals.ie
wowdeals.ie
yourdeal.ie
onoffer.ie
thedealking.ie
gruupy.com
megadeals.ie
featured.ie
grabadeal.ie
newstalk.ie/about/deal-of-the-day
jobs.ie/Deals
snapicity.com
sinirgy.com
catchthemonkey.ie
grouple.ie
jammygit.ie
myirishvouchers.com
i-deal.ie
moocher.ie
smartsave.ie

(source www.dealy.ie/deals-in-ireland/list-of-daily-deal-sites)

bored_newbie

Acara wrote: »

Just like the groutch said it's all BS and fake RRP's. Any hotel let's face it will give u a good deal off peak time!!

To an extent I agree but I've rang hotels and been told that the price is the price and there's been very little budge.

I think the deal sites are good for the hotel/meal vouchers if the dates suit you. They've restricted it more and more over the years though. Initially you could book a hotel room any night of the week, now its all Sun-Thurs and loads of blackout dates. beddeals.ie is another one I don't see mentioned in the list above; when it first started I got some great discounts on hotel rooms that I couldn't get otherwise.