Over the past year, some news reports have questioned the long-term viability and popularity of daily deal companies, but the industry shows no evidence of slowing down, according to a new study from Rice University.
In the study, "How Businesses Fare With Daily Deals As They Gain Experience: A Multi-Time Period Study of Daily Deal Performance," Utpal Dholakia examines performance of daily deals using survey data from 641 small- and medium-sized businesses obtained at three time periods: April-May 2011, October 2011, and May 2012. Dholakia is a professor of management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.
In contrast to a study Dholakia published last June, his latest findings indicate a number of positive signs for the daily deal industry.
"Overall, the results find little or no evidence of deterioration in the performance of daily deal promotions over the past year or as the business operator runs multiple daily deals," Dholakia said. "Rather, there is improvement on some metrics."
Key findings from the new paper include:
"These findings indicate that daily deal promotions appear to be sustainable marketing programs for about one-third of the businesses that try them," Dholakia said. "The challenge for the daily deal sites in the coming months will be to find these businesses and earn a greater share of their business,"
A video that accompanies this news release can be found at http://youtu.be/n5pacN5FhSo .
Related materials:
Utpal Dholakia's faculty page: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia
Study: How Businesses Fare With Daily Deals As They Gain Experience: A Multi-Time Period Study of Daily Deal Performance: http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-05-DailyDeals.pdf .
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf .