Has the daily deals market peaked? That seems to be the suggestion of new analysis from Hitwise. The new data also chimes with research carried out earlier this summer that found that almost half of those who have registered on group buying deal sites may never have actually taken up a deal.
At the same time it seems that the market may be flattening out, with Groupon’s domination waning.
Hitwise Intelligence found that the number of visits to leading deals website Groupon has fallen over the summer, after peaking during the second week of June. By the third week of August, traffic to Groupon was down by 50% compared to that June peak. Visits to rival Living Social rose by 27% in the same period, but visits to the daily deal and aggregator category of websites were down by 25% at the same time.
Hitwise analyst Bill Tancer said: “Perhaps it is simply a case of increased number of competitors and deal fatigue among consumers or simply not enough of the right deals.”
The study follows research by Lightspeed Research earlier this summer. It found that while consumers were signing up for deals websites, many had yet to part with their cash to take up a deal.
It quizzed 1,000 people in an online poll in June and found that while 72% of respondents were aware of deals website, and 48% of those aware had registered on Groupon. Some 19% had registered for eBay daily deals while 14% had signed up for kgbdeals.
But of those that had registered only 54% had made a purchase. Some 59% of those registered on deals sites had yet to be enticed by any of them, 10% saying they would but the deals were too far away and 22% citing financial constraints.
That tied in with results from PriceGrabber’s local deals survey, that showed 44% said they use or search daily deal websites. But 52% said they were overwhelmed by the number of bargain-promoting emails they get each day.
Hitwise’s Tancer added: “While consumer fatigue may be one factor another key consideration for these sites is to focus on the attracting new and preferred audience segments via the inbox.”
