[repos]

Can companies really opt out of Get Satisfaction, or will they always be presented with the "Company X has not yet committed to open conversations about its products or services."

If Loopt explicitly allows companies to opt out (and prevent the creation of deals for that company) then perhaps the service might be beneficial (companies that opt in to stay may get valuable feedback of what the consumer wants/would be willing pay for).

[potatolicious]

I'm not quite so confident about this idea. To me, all you will get are people voting for discounts at places they already frequent. This is not a good measure of what customers want, nor the prices they're willing to bear for these goods and services.

I may be willing to pay $3 for a latte from my favourite coffee shop... but you're damn right I'm going to vote yes on $1 coffee. Why wouldn't I? This is going to result in a lot of businesses needlessly offering discounts to existing customers for little discernible benefit. On top of this, it sheds no light on the effectiveness of pricing structures, since there's nothing in the system that encourages the discovery of pricing equilibrium.

I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're good new customers is besides the point).

[Roop13]

I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're good new customers is besides the point).

So true. Thank you whomever you are. Tell Rockya this.

Back to loopt suggested deals. We have thought of this but how does this possibly work? When the only people that are going to really work hard for discounts they already want are full price paying advocates already. I can't see any benefit to this type of promotion at all. Absolute cannibalization of their current full-price paying customers. It's not sustainable and much worse than daily-deals.

[clobber]

New customers that never return.