5 ms·

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using t

by rockya 15y ago

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them. I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service they can't commit to delivering.

pg 15y ago
Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable. If too few businesses accept the offers made to them by buyers, the buyers will find the service useless and won't recommend it to their friends, and traffic will dry up.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  > "That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable." I agree it's unsustainable, but this seems to miss the point: while the business model of the idea in question does not revolve around win-lose deals and trademark infringement, something ethically questionable has happened here. This is reminiscent of the AirBNB brouhaha - while the service itself may be valuable, the means by which the company chose to market and launch itself was sketchy to the extreme. If AirBnb's core offering was not compelling, spamming people on Craigslist would've been unsustainable, as it would be here - but the fact that the product doesn't suck is not justification for questionable behavior such as this. Some material harm (thankfully it would seem, not much) has come to at least one business involved, and had it continued in that format (i.e., vague text that doesn't seek to distance Loopt from these unaffiliated merchants) it would certainly have caused more damage.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- rockya 15y ago
  Publishing results in: - Loopt getting subscribers to its list. That seems like a benefit to me. - Merchant getting perceived as a discount brand. For many merchants, that's a negative. - Merchant having to deal with customer inquiries about a deal they know nothing about. That's a negative. It should also be noted that Loopt picked really high profile businesses like Bi-Rite and Ritual Coffee. These places usually have lines and don't have much need to run large discounts. If Loopt had picked obscure businesses, it would make it easier to claim they weren't trying to benefit from the business's good name.
  - pg 15y ago
    Loopt getting subscribers to its list. That seems like a benefit to me. But not a net benefit. Unless this is sustainable, it will have been a very expensive way to collect email addresses.
    - rockya 15y ago
      This whole model is going to collapse for a lot of reasons. I wrote about that here: http://redesignmobile.com/2011/06/22/loopts-u-deals-offer-an-interesting-twist-but-with-many-challenges/ http://redesignmobile.com/2011/06/22/loopts-u-deals-offer-an...
hammock 15y ago
Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. How on earth is that? This is not an AdWords/web traffic model - Loopt does not make any money unless they can close a deal with a business. If Loopt really is what you say it is then it will go under as soon as they run out of cash, and you don't really need to worry about it so much, as it's just like any other bad startup idea.
sama 15y ago
If we have a lot of users sign up for deals that don't go through, that hurts us a lot. That's the reason we pre-set the discounts at levels that make sense for each category of business, and why we're reaching out to businesses early in the process. We're taking credit card numbers in the same way Priceline does for name-your-own price deals and Groupon used to when deals might not tip. Please let me know what your friends say, though.
- rockya 15y ago
  I'm well aware of the Priceline model. I've booked hundreds of room nights using Priceline -- in fact, I'm staying at a hotel I Pricelined right now. The difference between Priceline and what you're doing is that Priceline has already established relationships with hotels. They have the ability to fill demand that meets certain criteria. You don't have the ability to fill demand for the product you're advertising. Now, if Loopt were willing to pay the difference out of its own pockets (as some daily deal vendors do), that's another story. Even then, you've got a trademark infringement issue.
- rockya 15y ago
  From a payments expert: "I have never seen anything get so close to full on fraud in the open."

by rockya 15y ago

pg 15y ago

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable. If too few businesses accept the offers made to them by buyers, the buyers will find the service useless and won't recommend it to their friends, and traffic will dry up.

potatolicious 15y ago
> "That's not true. Unless this is genuinely valuable to enough businesses, it won't be sustainable." I agree it's unsustainable, but this seems to miss the point: while the business model of the idea in question does not revolve around win-lose deals and trademark infringement, something ethically questionable has happened here. This is reminiscent of the AirBNB brouhaha - while the service itself may be valuable, the means by which the company chose to market and launch itself was sketchy to the extreme. If AirBnb's core offering was not compelling, spamming people on Craigslist would've been unsustainable, as it would be here - but the fact that the product doesn't suck is not justification for questionable behavior such as this. Some material harm (thankfully it would seem, not much) has come to at least one business involved, and had it continued in that format (i.e., vague text that doesn't seek to distance Loopt from these unaffiliated merchants) it would certainly have caused more damage.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
rockya 15y ago
Publishing results in: - Loopt getting subscribers to its list. That seems like a benefit to me. - Merchant getting perceived as a discount brand. For many merchants, that's a negative. - Merchant having to deal with customer inquiries about a deal they know nothing about. That's a negative. It should also be noted that Loopt picked really high profile businesses like Bi-Rite and Ritual Coffee. These places usually have lines and don't have much need to run large discounts. If Loopt had picked obscure businesses, it would make it easier to claim they weren't trying to benefit from the business's good name.
- pg 15y ago
  Loopt getting subscribers to its list. That seems like a benefit to me. But not a net benefit. Unless this is sustainable, it will have been a very expensive way to collect email addresses.
  - rockya 15y ago
    This whole model is going to collapse for a lot of reasons. I wrote about that here: http://redesignmobile.com/2011/06/22/loopts-u-deals-offer-an-interesting-twist-but-with-many-challenges/ http://redesignmobile.com/2011/06/22/loopts-u-deals-offer-an...

hammock 15y ago

Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it. How on earth is that? This is not an AdWords/web traffic model - Loopt does not make any money unless they can close a deal with a business. If Loopt really is what you say it is then it will go under as soon as they run out of cash, and you don't really need to worry about it so much, as it's just like any other bad startup idea.

sama 15y ago

If we have a lot of users sign up for deals that don't go through, that hurts us a lot. That's the reason we pre-set the discounts at levels that make sense for each category of business, and why we're reaching out to businesses early in the process. We're taking credit card numbers in the same way Priceline does for name-your-own price deals and Groupon used to when deals might not tip. Please let me know what your friends say, though.

rockya 15y ago
I'm well aware of the Priceline model. I've booked hundreds of room nights using Priceline -- in fact, I'm staying at a hotel I Pricelined right now. The difference between Priceline and what you're doing is that Priceline has already established relationships with hotels. They have the ability to fill demand that meets certain criteria. You don't have the ability to fill demand for the product you're advertising. Now, if Loopt were willing to pay the difference out of its own pockets (as some daily deal vendors do), that's another story. Even then, you've got a trademark infringement issue.
rockya 15y ago
From a payments expert: "I have never seen anything get so close to full on fraud in the open."