Groupon UK - save serious amounts of dosh

This post is about a website which helps you save money, not earn money and so it is a bit different from many articles I have on the site but I hope it still proves to be useful (however there is the potential to earn money as a Groupon affiliate - see more information below).

Groupon, also known as Group On is a company which specialises in bulk buying to bring cheaper deals for consumers.  This is a brief overview of how the website works, a quick review and information on whether Groupon is actually a big scam.  These deals can be anything from spa treatment sessions through to meals through to bowling; but they have one thing in common - they offer massive percentages off (over 90% in many cases) but what is unique is each deal lasts a maximum of a day.

For example, recently Groupon have offered tickets to the cinema for £1 instead of £12, £20 instead of £90 for an hour long massage and manicure and £12.50 instead of £66 for access to the Streetcar fleet (as an aside it is possible to get 10% cashback on all Groupon purchases by using TopCashBack, further increasing earnings!).  

How do they manage to get such good deals.  The company line is they manage to get discounts through bulk buying - which must be true up to a point but I think there are other reasons as well.  Many companies probably see it as a good way of getting advertising and new clients - think of it as them offering a discount now in the hope of getting repeat business at the normal price.  Also I think that the Groupon business must also make money from no shows due the unusual way in which the scheme works.

There are a large number of websites which promise discount vouchers.  However, Groupon is slightly different.  Instead of giving you a voucher to print off it asks you to pay the price upfront and then book an appointment or whatever later.  Often there can be limits on when vouchers can be used etc so I would imagine that many people forget and so don't take advantage of what they have purchased.

When signing up, you  are asked for details on where you live - this is for administration purposes and to make sure you are shown the correct deals as most deals are location specific.  As such there are many Groupon sites available, including large cities like London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow but also smaller places like Falkirk, Oldham and Telford and one can only imagine that the scope of these will increase.

Having said all of this, I believe Groupon is a great idea.  It has been around in the USA for a while and has recently launched in the UK to great acclaim.  Already many people are using the site and I can only imagine this will increase further as people discover the excellent deals on offer.  I can only provide my own personal experiences in my own review and I have found Groupon to be excellent.

There is also the potential to earn credit for use on purchasing items by using referral links to encourage other people to sign up for Groupon.  At the time of writing, for every person who signs up to Groupon, the referrer gets £6 into their account and for this reason all of the links above on this website are affiliates (meaning i earn £6 for every sign up).  However if you don't want to use this affiliate link click here to go straight to the Groupon website.

If you are interested in Groupon sign up here.

Have you used Groupon?  What were your experiences of it?  Use the section below to give a review - and don't be afraid to call it a scam if you think that is what it is (although I certainly don't think it is!).