EBay-owned PayPal surprised the business world this week in announcing that they plan to compete with the daily deals market. How will they do it?

The PayPal Plan

Unlike traditional daily deals websites, which release time-limited sales and special offers to consumers via websites and smartphone apps, PayPal plans to jump into the business of mobile coupons. Much like Yowza, a company that pushes money saving local coupons to shoppers’ iPhone and Android smartphones, PayPal has high hopes to save consumers money by putting coupons in their pockets. Unlike Yowza, however, PayPal has a distinct advantage: they will use consumers’ purchasing data to determine which coupons they’re most likely to need and use.  Scott Thompson, eBay President, told the Bloomberg News Agency this week that PayPal will tailor its offers based its 103 million members’ purchasing history. PayPal plans to make their mobile deals available to shoppers before April 2012.

Can PayPal Compete?

The deal-of-the-day business model grew out of the 2009 recession and has been going strong ever since. Industry leader Groupon is today worth an estimated $13 billion and shows no signs of slowing down.  And thanks to daily deal aggregators, which sort through the hundreds of daily deal offers presented to the web daily and send only relevant deals to consumers, daily deal fatigue is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Clearly, daily deals aren’t going anywhere. And if you hold fast to facts, a recent BIA/Kelsey study forecasts that daily deals will more than double by the year 2015.

PayPal’s new vision isn’t exactly new or particularly noteworthy. Mobile couponing websites like Yowza, MobileCoupons.com and CellFire have made more than a dent in the mobile coupon market and have gained the trust and loyalty of shoppers in America. It remains to be seen how privacy-weary consumers will actually feel about PayPal snooping through their purchase history in order to push only relevant coupons their direction.

And while we can’t forecast the success or failure of PayPal’s new venture, one thing is for certain: the prospect of competition can only mean that more and better deals will be made available to savvy shoppers. And that’s a win for everyone!

The latest Parks Associates study, which polled broadband users’ shopping habits this holiday season, found that 78% of U.S. broadband customers have viewed online website sales and daily deal offers in the last 30 days. The research firm's study, Consumer Decision Process: Holiday Intentions, found consumers visited daily deal websites an average of 10 times per month and read daily deal related emails 17 times per month.

Effectively, daily deal websites are changing the way we shop. Despite the findings, though, some shoppers are still leery to jump on the daily deal bandwagon. Marcia Parks-Nelson, retired Illinois judge, says that it took her some time to get excited about daily deal bargains. “I have six children and thirteen grandchildren,” says Parks-Nelson, “and I do a lot of shopping, but it wasn’t until last Christmas that I understood how much money I could save with daily deals.”

Are you shopping daily deals? If not, listen up! Here are five reasons you really should jump on the bandwagon. More...

Are you using all the daily deal vouchers you’ve purchased?

In April of this year, Time Magazine reported that 1 in 5 group buying deals go unused. Vinicius Vacanti, Yipip CEO, is quoted as saying that "anywhere between 10% and 30% of deals aren’t redeemed." That’s a lot of money down the drain. Care to maximize your daily deal buys? Here are four ways to do just that.

1.  Make plans now

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. --Thomas Jefferson

Procrastination leads us to stick daily deal vouchers in a drawer or wallet and forget about them until they’ve reached their expiration date. You can avoid this common mistake by committing your voucher to action the moment you purchase it. Did you buy dinner for two at a fancy restaurant? Make reservations the second your sale is complete. Did you invest in a haircut and shampoo from your local spa? Call and schedule an appointment immediately. More...

A day at the spa may have sounded like a great bargain when you picked up that Groupon voucher last month, but now you realize you’ll never be able to enjoy a day away before it expires. What do you do? And maybe you had good intentions to get to the theater with the family on that daily deal buy, but the busyness of the holiday season has tied up your schedule. Are you really out all that money?

Lots and lots of daily deal aficionados have made buying mistakes they later regret. For some, it’s accidental purchases and for others, the fine print on a deal isn’t read and suddenly they find themselves unable to use a voucher due to blackout dates or other limitations. Whatever the reason, you needn’t suffer from daily deal buyer’s remorse and kiss the savings goodbye. Here are four places where you can sell off your old daily deals and earn back some cash. More...

It was only a few short months ago when The Atlantic Wire reported that shoppers were sick of daily deal sites.  The consumer web, we were told, was dead. Shoppers, it seemed, were overwhelmed with offers and drowning in daily deal websites and emails, and had just about had enough. Facebook and Yelp responded to the news by scaling back their group buying ventures, and even traffic to Groupon, the top contender in the social buying arena, seemed to drop off at a noticeable level.

Contrary to media speculation and exhaustive commentary by anyone with a keyboard, social buying websites are not a thing of the past, they’re evolving. The Washington Post's Hayley Tsukayama weighs in with these words: "What's likely to happen in the daily deals space is that a handful of industry leaders will rise to the top, while smaller or niche efforts will fade away."  In other words, welcome to the Internet! More...

Invest in Experience and Stop Buying Junk

It seems that each year we spend more and more money on gifts. A recent Gallop poll shows that American shoppers are predicted to spend $764 on presents in 2011, a figure that’s up $50 from last year.  

Canadians, on the other hand, are predicted to spend $1,397 between now and the end of December, but they’ll be investing more money on entertaining friends and family and spending quality time with loved ones, as opposed to wrapping and unwrapping presents from under the tree.

Of course, these are just guesses and predictions, which often fall short of our actual shopping habits. In reality, last minute shoppers and those charging the holidays away will more than likely be paying off gifts well into the 2012 holiday shopping season, and spending far more than their budgets allows. More...