RetailMeNot.com Launched Shopping Community
TechCrunch: RetailMeNot Adds Social Network, where Duncan Riley interviewed Guy King from RetailMeNot.com, talked about turning ReviewMeNot.com into a social network of Shopping Community, and how a 3-employees Melbourne-based start up with no VC funding generated $10 million sales and seven figure profit a year.
Impressive.
Just let you know a little secret — my bargains website has also generated an eight figure turn over over the last 12 months, except you have to do it in the currency of Indonesian Rupiah. Now, where is that TechCrunch report again? Wanna do an interview? :)
However the focus should be on RetailMeNot’s latest shopping community, which I think is a great idea!
Coupon website that offers quick search doesn’t stick. My guess is that each visit to RMN will generate fewer than 3 page views — people found what they are looking for and continued shopping, and they don’t stick around checking out what are the latest deals. At the same time, social network/community websites really stick like poo on a blanket. People check out each other’s profiles, leave messages, search long-lost friends and kill zombies. Well, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. Not only it builds connections and communications between your members, it is also great for impression based revenue — especially when RetailMeNot is already having so many visitors. That would be an alternative to their affiliation-based revenue.
Deal websites offering social network is not a new concept though. OzBargain is based on Drupal which makes building a social network trivial. Many Pligg-based social bookmark sites can also be some-how categorised as social networks. Another way of building a social network is by leverage an existing social network — for example Facebook, where you get all your social network functionality for free, and you just need to focus on bringing the deals onto the plate.
All the best with the launch!
Okay Scotty:
1) I’ll do an interview with you!
2) Can you disclose the sum?
@Jeff,
Well. The sum — I usually only know the exact figure at around 1 week before Oct 31 — when the tax return form is due! However 8 figures — so is between 10 million and 99 million Indonesian Rupiah per year revenue ($1,167-$11,561 AUD). More likely somewhere in the middle :)
But also remember, it’s just the revenue. Weekly prizes alone cost me more than $2,000 last year, hosting more than $600, and a few other expenses. The exact sum will be reserved between me and ATO.
Oh, 40% of the profit goes to ATO as well. Damn.
If you pitch and it has a Web 2.0 angle always happy to take a look.
@Duncan — thanks for the offer. I was only joking when I asked for an interview. I rather stay low profile :)
Hey Scott! Glad to see you are alive and kicking. The RetailMeNot coverage has brought back some interesting discussions to the “social bargain hunting” area. Would love to hear your opinion. Is sharing an exclusive coupon on a site like RetailMeNot morally acceptable? Should RMN stuff take these down? Can they possibly prevent this? If they can’t why other affiliates should suffer? Does the traditional marketing model stand? These and many other questions…
Scott I don’t see any reason to include the income in your tax return. This site is a hobby site & any income you earnt is for upkeep of the site. The only reason I can see to include the income in your tax return is if you say it is a business ite and then claim ‘business’ expenses in the form of hosting fees/prizes etc. Assuming you you have a net profit the inclusion will result in higher tax.
@Yan — I actually have quite a different view on this because I don’t do affiliate marketing on OzBargain. I will post about it this week.
@noneother — well, I think ATO’s definition of “hobby” might be a bit different from yours, otherwise I will suddenly have lots of hobbies :) You might want to look up some of the example hobbies given by ATO. The very fact that I am getting a .com.au domain means I need either an ABN, an ACN or a business registration number — and that would probably rule out any chance claiming this is just a hobby.