Holy daily deals. It has been one hot week for anyone in Boston with a soft spot for deep discounts. First, Boston-based coupon and daily deal provider Eversave announced expansion into 7 more cities. Next, Boston’s location based discovery engine WHERE soft launched the daily deals aspect of its business in the Hub called NearBuys.
And now Scoutmob, a “daily deal 2.0” provider based in Atlanta, has announced its expansion into Boston (and nine other cities) – along with $1.5 million in fresh funding from Cambridge-based New Atlantic Ventures.
What makes Scoutmob different from other daily deal providers out there? First and foremost, it’s a mobile solution – one that enables “local flash commerce.” If you’re interested in “joining the mob,” deals are delivered to you through an iPhone or Android app or over SMS to any other phone — and are available immediately. With a Groupon or a Gilt City, you usually have to wait a full 24 hours to redeem the discount — and you are forced to make the purchase upfront. With Scoutmob, you don’t have to redeem/make the purchase until you’re actually at the register and 100% certain you’ll be using it. Likewise on the merchant side, Scoutmob only charges based on redeemed daily deals.
Scoutmob is also entertaining, with highly visual and amusing reviews for each deal as well as coverage of local happenings. Mashable certainly seems to think Scoutmob is on to something special, naming the company a top five mobile app of 2010. Here’s the company’s “how deals go down” walkthrough:
“This is the future of digital deals,” Thanasis Delistathis, co-founder and managing partner of New Atlantic Ventures (and who with the funding joins Scoutmob’s Board). “We invested in Scoutmob because of its novel approach to consumers and merchants alike. Consumers don’t have to commit upfront and can tap into a community that helps them discover their city. Merchants spend less on promotions, get a branding opportunity and draw a more loyal demographic than traditional coupon clippers.”
Scoutmob was initially launched in NYC, San Francisco and Atlanta in 2010 and since then has scaled its user base to 500,000 in number. It plans to use the latest funding to bolster user growth, expand its technology, and triple in team size in 2011 (anyone in Boston looking for a job?). The Boston deals are currently in beta, and each will run for a full week (as opposed to a day) until the company scales a bit more here.
“The initial local daily deal concept was brilliant, but new business models like Scoutmob will lead the next wave of local flash commerce,” said David Payne, co-founder and CEO, Scoutmob. “Consumers want good deals, but don’t want to pay ahead of time for them. Local businesses want measurable results, but don’t want to give up tons of revenue.”
The other nine cities aside from Boston that Scoutmob announced expanding into include Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, LA, Nashville, Seattle, and Washington DC. Here in Boston, the company’s first deal (which runs for the remainder of the week) is for 50% at Franklin Cafe:
What are merchants saying about Scoutmob so far? Check out quotes from these two businesses:
Dana Spinola, founder and president, fab’rik, a clothing boutique with 12 stores across five U.S. states: “Scoutmob is the most effective marketing tool we have ever used and is having a deep impact on sales and repeat business. Within hours after a deal goes out, customers take over our store. To them, it is a ‘no-brainer’ – they don’t buy the deal upfront, it is just waiting for them on their mobile phone.”
Mark Kelly, owner, Tree Bistro, a restaurant in New York City’s East Village: “We have worked with every major deals company and Scoutmob is the best. We like Scoutmob’s personal, engaging style and unique model. We attract more customers using Scoutmob and they tend to spend more, spread word to their friends and come back again.”
