role with BuyWithMe as a director. “People realized this is an international phenomenon. It’s not just a hundred billion dollar local space. There are applications in every country. There’s a lot of room for multiple players.”
BuyWithMe has positioned itself as sort of a thinking person’s Groupon—instead of daily deals, BuyWithMe runs its promotions for a full week. “The deals space is really about matchmaking and customer acquisition,” Moss says. “It’s not just the deal that matters, but the relationship you form between the customer and the merchant.”
To that end, the company is “clearly co-existing with Groupon” and is “very profitable in Boston,” Moss says, where some of its deals include vouchers to top gyms, spas, restaurants, and Duck Tours. The key to the success of BuyWithMe—and really the whole deals sector—is whether it will continue to pay off for local merchants.
That’s where the company’s focus on establishing stickier connections between retailers and customers (not just one-off deals) comes into play. So far, so good, says Moss, who says most of BuyWithMe’s promotions are profitable for merchants and should keep bringing in more long-term paying customers.
Whether the consumer brand or the technology platform is the right strategy to pursue, both Moss and Tobias agree that group buying is not a fad. And they dispute the idea that there are no barriers to entry. To Moss, the main barriers are scale and relationships with merchants and consumers. For Tobias, it’s the group-buying technology itself, plus the expertise in running the deals.
“This marketing tool is here to stay,” he says. “This is not a flash in the pan.”
