Bring Out Yer Data!

Last week, in the wake of the first-ever daily deals conference in New York City (where we were participants), NPR’s Planet Money team ran an in-depth analysis of the state of the daily deal industry. If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend that you listen to the whole piece; while we’re not necessarily in 100% agreement on all of the issues the Planet Money team presented, their analysis of the industry was insightful and illuminating.

With the group buying market expected to grow 138% this year – to revenues of almost $2.7b – industry conferences like this are simply essential. Providers are looking to determine best practices, market segmentation, and expansion opportunities – while also potentially picking up a few new clients (as Planet Money humorously notes, their journalist was approached by at least two white-label providers looking to build a relationship with NPR).

The primary constraint, though, remains one of data – specifically, at what point will there be sufficient information on the habits of group buying consumers, merchants, and publishers to be able to draw meaningful conclusions about the trajectory of the market and associated best practices? And once that data is in hand, will it be shared between competing providers?

Certainly, in other industries, we’ve seen instances where competitors have deemed it sufficiently in their own self-interest to share proprietary information. In an emerging market such as group buying, making this calculation is particularly difficult, given that the relative value of any given piece of data is difficult to determine. So, as has been the case with Groupon and others to date, we’re likely to see those with the most data continue to be rightfully conservative in their bearing, at least until a compelling case can be made to the contrary.

Still, even without a formal “opening of the books”, these conferences represent a tremendous resource for companies such as ours, and we look forward to attending future industry events – and perhaps even hosting a few of our own!