Living Social

« **on:** April 17, 2012, 01:32:16 pm »

Just had rep round to try and get me to sign up for this,offers so far 4 bedroom house £32 then they take 35% of that or 3 bed house £29 but you get paid for every voucher sold even if they are not used unlike groupon who only pay for vouchers used.Or oven clean £19 and I would be able to cope with demand.

Needless to say he went away disappointed

« **Reply #1 on:** April 17, 2012, 01:47:27 pm »

hi
i did it for window cleaning. wasnt good had a 110 houses all over leicestershire, all filthy. only signed up a handfull.

i hear it can be better for carpets as you can upsell more work. but i wouldnt do them again.

john

« **Reply #2 on:** April 17, 2012, 01:52:09 pm »

Only if you are desperate....

to go bust.

« **Reply #3 on:** April 17, 2012, 08:23:09 pm »

Or if your name is Hector

« **Reply #4 on:** April 17, 2012, 10:32:34 pm »

« **Reply #5 on:** April 17, 2012, 10:46:52 pm »

4 bed house for £32 minus 35% ! what are they on, is this a way around minimum wage for them?

It could well cost that in fuel and chems, leaving you with 0.

Seriously you gotta tell these people straight how ridiculous that is.

Offer them a job doing your tele sales for £1 per hour.

P*ss taken bast**ds!

« **Reply #6 on:** April 18, 2012, 07:20:34 am »

Hi

Went for an MOt an my mehcanic was approached by groupn, wanted them to offer MOT's for £29, even though theyhave to charge £53.00, they declined.

A regular customer of theirs went with another garage for a groupon MOT and it failed, the garge said that it would cost £395.00 to get it to pass.

My mehcanic, said to bring it round and he'd check it for free to see as he'd MOT'd it last year. Turns out (of course) that it only needs £100.00 spending on it to pass!

So, careful with groupon/Living social/kgb deals and wowcher, it could end up costing you more. with the upsell.

If you're offering these deals you may not get to upsell and it could cost you everything.

Martin

« **Reply #7 on:** April 18, 2012, 07:23:43 am »

Quote from: Simon Gerrard on April 17, 2012, 08:23:09 pm

Or if your name is Hector

not very nice

now say sorry

« **Reply #8 on:** April 18, 2012, 07:33:58 am »

Their main selling point was you get paid for every voucher bought not just the ones used, they seem to think less than 50% use the vouchers. Plus there was a big reliance on up selling but as I pointed out couldn't see somebody wanting to pay a £xxx amount for protection when it's just cost them £32 to clean the whole house.

« **Reply #9 on:** April 18, 2012, 05:59:18 pm »

Took livingsocial deal the other week they pay me installments off 50% 30% then 20% they also pay me for voucher not reedemed any questions just ask mate

« **Reply #10 on:** April 18, 2012, 06:01:25 pm »

Also dont do full house for 34 do 2 rooms for 29 or else you wont get any additional carpets

« **Reply #11 on:** April 18, 2012, 06:07:31 pm »

I am in the middle of a living social promotion 1 carpet 25, HSL and 1 room 49, 3 piece 59 have generated lots of work from people outside the 5 mile radius i had set in the terms and conditions as i am offering simalar prices but directly through myself all in all not that bad considering the country is in ruins

« **Reply #12 on:** April 22, 2012, 11:08:45 pm »

Hi,

Have done several promotions with living social

and had some great work on the back of it commercial etc.

I simply worked out an hourly rate i was happy with and and offered free travel on the first 10 miles

for a three bedroom house i offered it for 89.00 with living social and three rooms for 49.00

additional payments for specialised stain removal etc

worked a treat database is booming took an initial loss on my usual prices but now all the customers come direct to me and my work load has gone through the roof.

Do it but make it work for you and think what your happy with on an hourly rate managed to make it work for me and im now going strength to strength

Darren
Dazzling carpets

« **Reply #13 on:** April 23, 2012, 08:51:03 am »

wish I was getting prices like 89 pounds

« **Reply #14 on:** April 23, 2012, 10:08:05 am »

How you getting £89 for a 3 bedroom house
when the original poster could only get £29??

John

« **Reply #15 on:** April 23, 2012, 10:13:40 am »

And how do you get to offer these deals.
Googled it but all I get is offers for things
rather than me offering things on LS.

John

« **Reply #16 on:** April 23, 2012, 10:26:26 am »

Quote from: JandS on April 23, 2012, 10:13:40 am

And how do you get to offer these deals.
Googled it but all I get is offers for things
rather than me offering things on LS.

John

At the very bottom of the page there's a link saying "Businesses", click on that and it tells you from there.

« **Reply #17 on:** April 23, 2012, 11:39:52 am »

I just dont understand this at all.... I have met some of the people who hunt for these type of deals on Groupon and Living Social... most of them would NEVER pay the going rate to have their carpets cleaned!
All i can see it doing is de-valuing a skilled service... pretty much what hand car washing has done to the valeting trade.
There are only two parties who benefit from this... the tight fisted customer and the scamming so and so's ready to grab their percentage and leave you in ruins...

Who would like to come and clean my house for £50?? any takers?

« **Reply #18 on:** April 23, 2012, 11:55:49 am »

Russ

Depends how it works but.....
What's to stop you telling them that you charge
£180 - £200 for a 3 piece suite cleaning.
What's the percentages on that kind of money??

John

« **Reply #19 on:** April 23, 2012, 12:33:10 pm »

John,

The thing stopping you saying you charge £200 per suite is the rep.

They just wont go for a 50% discount on that. They would want you to offer 85-90%.

Why would they run your 50% off at £100 when some else will offer 50% off at £30.

Fran

« **Reply #20 on:** April 23, 2012, 01:12:16 pm »

Don't know but someone on this thread said they were getting
£89 for a 3 bedroom yet someone else said £29.
Or is there a bit of b/s going on with the £89?

John

« **Reply #21 on:** April 23, 2012, 01:46:00 pm »

I have never got involved in groupon/ls discussion for that very reason John.

You never quite know who is telling you the truth. My initial thought was that £89 is way too much as I've never seen ls or groupon advertise any cleaning (whether that be carpets/ovens/spring cleaning)
for anywhere close to £100.

The most I have seen personally was £44 and that was for 2 carpets WITH SG.

Fran

« **Reply #22 on:** April 23, 2012, 01:54:23 pm »

Ive got people near me who have done three of the groupon offers - they seem to have set up a website that covers all the angles for them (if you see what I mean) They offer groupon buyers a Maintenance Clean On there Q and A page on the site it says this:

What is a maintenance clean?

A clean that manufacturers recommend at least once a year to prevent the build up of ground in dirt and stop the appearance of traffic lanes. It will not remove visible staining or traffic lanes.

I think these offers just attract the wrong sort of client and (as someone else on here says) have the effect of de-valuing what we do... its not the sort of service that can be sold short like this

« **Reply #23 on:** April 23, 2012, 03:47:21 pm »

Quote from: darren Jones on April 22, 2012, 11:08:45 pm

Hi,

Have done several promotions with living social

and had some great work on the back of it commercial etc.

I simply worked out an hourly rate i was happy with and and offered free travel on the first 10 miles

for a three bedroom house i offered it for 89.00 with living social and three rooms for 49.00

additional payments for specialised stain removal etc

worked a treat database is booming took an initial loss on my usual prices but now all the customers come direct to me and my work load has gone through the roof.

Do it but make it work for you and think what your happy with on an hourly rate managed to make it work for me and im now going strength to strength

Darren

Dazzling carpets

hi darren
did you get 89.00 or was that the offer, if they take 45-55% doesnt leave much. i know its a lost leader for future work/upsell but i found with windows we didnt get the repeats even though we left most customers happy.(one or two where moaning minnies after the earht for nothing.

cheers

john

« **Reply #24 on:** April 23, 2012, 03:51:43 pm »

Quote from: JandS on April 23, 2012, 11:55:49 am

Russ

Depends how it works but.....
What's to stop you telling them that you charge
£180 - £200 for a 3 piece suite cleaning.
What's the percentages on that kind of money??

John

john
they go into your pricing with you and they are clued up as they have done most deals with somone else before.

they also want to be perceived as cheap otherwise they will loose there client base.

cheers

john

« **Reply #25 on:** April 23, 2012, 03:53:27 pm »

These company are not worth even talking about as far a I can see.

Tony

« **Reply #26 on:** April 23, 2012, 06:09:05 pm »

I will agree with yous these daily deals are bad and the moneys laughable but I went a bit quiet and though a job a day from it would be a stalking filler

would not recommend doing it though not making alot from upselling either

« **Reply #27 on:** April 23, 2012, 06:51:26 pm »

Quote from: Jamie Lindsay on April 23, 2012, 06:09:05 pm

stalking filler

Finding it hard to get victims these days?

« **Reply #28 on:** April 23, 2012, 06:56:24 pm »

These were figures the rep gave to me to attract the customers to buy the deal then your supposed to up sell your services, the best deal he said would be oven clean for £19 then sell my other services carpet cleaning,leather cleaning,pressure washing,window cleaning or tile cleaning

« **Reply #29 on:** April 23, 2012, 08:26:37 pm »

Quote from: Topgunn Cleaning Services on April 23, 2012, 06:56:24 pm

These were figures the rep gave to me to attract the customers to buy the deal then your supposed to up sell your services, the best deal he said would be oven clean for £19 then sell my other services carpet cleaning,leather cleaning,pressure washing,window cleaning or tile cleaning

So unless i am mistaken... the reps are selling your service for a knock down price just so you can get your foot in the door in the vain hope that the tight fisted so called customer is going to take you up on your offer to clean his or her's sofa for the going rate?

All i can say is if i am expected to offer my services for next to nothing then i probably wouldn't put my heart and soul into the job, but then i would never put my self or my business in the hands of a Groupon rep...

« **Reply #30 on:** April 23, 2012, 08:50:34 pm »

Completely agree Russ.

When you think about it they are asking you to take a double cut in your prices.

Discount to the customer then their cut of 30% of an already cut price.

They are prostituting you! Lol

« **Reply #31 on:** April 23, 2012, 09:39:17 pm »

They are prostituting you! Lol

Craig, don't you mean sodomising

« **Reply #32 on:** April 23, 2012, 09:53:56 pm »

Simon, yes

bend over for living social

« **Reply #33 on:** April 23, 2012, 10:01:34 pm »

Somebody up here is doing it

http://www.livingsocial.com/cities/215-newcastle-uk/deals/325014-deep-clean-for-two-carpets

« **Reply #34 on:** April 23, 2012, 10:13:03 pm »

What we need to be mindful of is for a company to place it's self between the buying public and business is an extremely lucrative place to be, it's where a lot of mammoth companies have made millons, yellow pages, yell.com, google, groupon, myhammer.com and endless new smaller enterprises, they all want to get in that space! They tell you anything and won't always be honest with you, they couldn't really care less, there's big money to be made for them, small business are easily exploited.

Just worth remembering when they (cold) call.

« **Reply #35 on:** April 23, 2012, 11:54:42 pm »

I cant believe trading standards allow this sort of thing to happen here in the UK...
Groupon are blatantly cashing in and exploiting the whole recession thing... all this will do is encourage poor standards and pressure selling in the customers home in order for the businesses to make any money!
Its not a million miles away from the old "bait and switch" tactics which we are all familiar with.

« **Reply #36 on:** April 24, 2012, 07:48:48 am »

I think people do these silly schemes because they are happy to earn a wage from it, viewing it as better than nothing, which makes it difficult for the rest of us to understand why people would sell their services so cheaply that they can't make a profit, when actually they aren't aiming to.

Simon

« **Reply #37 on:** April 24, 2012, 07:51:35 am »

Good post russ..

Am sure a few are doing the cheap deal to keep afloat..

What happens a few years down the line when there is no money in the pot after just earning a wage as simon said in his post..

« **Reply #38 on:** April 24, 2012, 08:11:40 am »

The problem is you can never get away from a cheap price and dealing with cheap skates in the first place, people who only bought your service because it was unbelievably cheap, so you're really going to struggle to turn them into profitable customers in the future, so I guess you're just stuck in Wage City!

« **Reply #39 on:** April 24, 2012, 05:25:42 pm »

Trading Standards, now theres a bunch of totally useless gits. This country is one of the most unregulated in the world. You can basically do what you like.

« **Reply #40 on:** April 25, 2012, 11:40:23 am »

Yes John you are right... every scam imaginable is being tested on us Brits...!
If a carpet cleaner chooses to offer a cheap prices to keep the money rolling in then that's fair enough, its when the companies mentioned get rich acting as a middle man for doing very little which gets my back up!

Why not beat these crooks at their own game...?

Set up a website similar ro Ebay where us carpet cleaners bid for work... the public answer a detailed questionare about their cleaning requirements and then we, the skilled tradesmen (and women) bid for the work... puts us more in control and would offer the customer better value for money and a good honest service.

Could also work for commercial contracts too...

« **Reply #41 on:** April 25, 2012, 12:52:07 pm »

Russ,
That's a bloody good idea.

Simon

« **Reply #42 on:** April 25, 2012, 01:49:48 pm »

Russ, Simon.

HAd this idea over a year ago. Had the site designed, and put it up for a year but with no real interest it is difficult to keep paying for google etc. to keep it out there.

Fran

« **Reply #43 on:** April 25, 2012, 02:10:07 pm »

Maybe something TACCA could do?

Derek

« **Reply #44 on:** April 25, 2012, 02:16:10 pm »

That would be a good idea for the well established cleaners out there, but for the likes of us who are still getting their arsenal together to make the grade to join TACCA, then i think we wouldn't get a look in

.....just sayin.

« **Reply #45 on:** April 25, 2012, 03:26:25 pm »

Wouldn't worry about TACCA Andrew.
The concept is a good idea but the fact is...
"Approved Carpet Cleaners" are only approved
by their equipment and insurance, not by their standards,
by one person who has never met most members.
Don't get me wrong I hope it does well, but approving
someone you don't even know is a bit, to me, deceptive.

John