It is not clear what is happening at DealDown in Brooklyn. Co-founder Martin Mittelman said via e-mail he could not currently comment, but according to a candid blog by former content manager Jeremy Davis, the startup DealDown seems to be on the way out: “Yesterday, I walked into work to find out that DealDown was about to shut down. Let me re-phrase that. It was being shuttered. All the furniture was quickly being sold to pay us as much as they could in past due wages. Eh.”
Though Davis’s post appeared the day before Thanksgiving, DealDown’s website and Twitter feed remained active as of Nov. 27.
DealDown sought to bring a different spin to the withering deals sector and launched its public beta in September. Mittelman previously spoke to Xconomy about his ambitions for DealDown, which he believed could drive steady business to local merchants.
The DealDown platform let retailers offer discounts to their regular customers in an attempt to attract repeat patronage. These days it is common to see consumers exploit daily deals to visit stores just once for the discounts—and then never return.
The deals sector has already seen plenty of shakeups and shakeouts. New York’s CityPockets, an aggregator of deals, shut down in June. Its founder pivoted to a Pinterest-esque idea for coupons, Reclip.it. Facebook killed Facebook Deals in 2011 and torpedoed its check-in deals in February, which were replaced by discount offers from merchants. Regardless of the size or clout of a company, this is a harsh sector to stay afloat in.
Mittelman said he would have more to report on in about a week. We’ll stay on top of things and let readers know what is happening.
