Online Discount Coupon Service

What do you think would be the best way to promote a "new" online discount coupon service for local businesses. I will charge a monthly fee and give a password so each business can fill in his discount coupon anytime he wants. Customers can then print out the discount coupon.

How much would a service like this be worth a month to local businesses.

John

> What do you think would be the best way to
> promote a "new" online discount
> coupon service for local businesses. I will
> charge a monthly fee and give a password so
> each business can fill in his discount
> coupon anytime he wants. Customers can then
> print out the discount coupon.

> How much would a service like this be worth
> a month to local businesses.

Hi John,

It sounds like an interesting idea. If I understood you right, you have a special "coupon" web site. Business owners can come to your site to offer coupons, and customers can come there to download them.

If I were you, I'd try to structure the payment like with Don Alm's idea, where you get paid by the customers. That is, offer business owners to promote their business for them by offering free discount coupons. Then, perhaps you could charge customers a fee to get these discounts.... So, if you could offer, say, a total of $100 worth of discounts, you could charge a $20 "membership fee" or something like that to get the discounts. If these are discounts for things that these people will buy anyway, it could work....

I don't know of anyone who has (yet) tried this online, but with more and more ecommerce happening, I think the idea is a great one!

- Dien Rice

Hi John,

Something to think about, what's to stop people from printing multiple discount coupons?

I personally think that if you want to do this online, it might work best selling coupons for other online businesses.... For example, if someone is selling a number of ebooks, a potential customer could get a discount "e-coupon" through your site for a limited number of purchases. I think this idea WILL happen sooner or later, I think it's a great idea....

In fact, this is like an alternative to "affiliate programs".... In a normal affiliate program, the main seller pays the affiliate for making a sale. In this new method, the "middle-man/woman" gets a discount, and sells that discount to a customer. From the main seller's point of view, it's the same, since he/she still gets paid a portion of the retail price. The main difference is what the customer sees....

- Dien