Yelp Deals Still Alive Despite Rumors and Loss in Revenue
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman recently confirmed that Yelp will continue to offer daily deals, despite rumors that Yelp Deals would be no more.
"Well, contrary to popular belief Yelp is not killing Deals (gasp!)," Jeremy writes on the Yelp blog. "We did take a 30 person team that was selling daily deals and local ads and made it a 15 person team focused solely on daily deals (note: no salespeople were harmed in the making of this announcement. All are still doing great as part of our 400+ member sales team)."
"Well, contrary to popular belief Yelp is not killing Deals (gasp!)," Jeremy writes on the Yelp blog. "We did take a 30 person team that was selling daily deals and local ads and made it a 15 person team focused solely on daily deals (note: no salespeople were harmed in the making of this announcement. All are still doing great as part of our 400+ member sales team)."
While Yelp is not leaving the deals space, it's no surprise the company is revamping the program by narrowing its focus. In August, Yelp Deals revenue declined 52%, according to a Yipit Data report.
"Over the last 6 months, Yelp has been generating less and less revenue per deal as competition in the space heated up," Yipit reports.
In February, Yelp Deals generated $19K of revenue per deal but by May, they were down to $7K of revenue per deal.
In February, Yelp Deals generated $19K of revenue per deal but by May, they were down to $7K of revenue per deal.
Other programs in the saturated deals market include Groupon, Living Social and Google Offers. In July, Foursquare expanded its stake in the deal space by partnering up with Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe, AT&T, Zozi and BuyWithMe .
Although not yet confirmed, Jeremy hinted that Yelp Deals might stop offering 50% off deals for certain businesses.
Although not yet confirmed, Jeremy hinted that Yelp Deals might stop offering 50% off deals for certain businesses.
"We've also heard consistently from certain categories of businesses (very popular ones I'm afraid) that daily deals are uneconomic for them, which does raise questions about the sustainability of "50% off" daily deals for these types of businesses."
Yelp's announcement comes several days after Facebook killed its deals service [ see our story here ].
"We're excited about this twist on Deals... though it's still a work in progress, so please give us a couple more months to take over the world," Jeremy writes.
-=-=-=-=-
AWESOME STARTUP JOBS
Challenge Post - Solving problems for everyone.
Datastax - Big Data. Big Smarts. Big Fun.
Thumbtack - America's marketplace for local services.
RecoEngine - Tech Buying. Made Simple.
Rapportive - Let's make email a better place