Chicago – The mother of group buying sites

The Groupon's start in the windy city of Chicago has led to a raft of group buying websites not only in the city but also world over. Groupon blazed the trail in the daily deal industry seeing marvelous growth in its revenue since its inception. Given the upward trend, there is no surprise that its sales reach one billion dollar. The trail-blazer will also likely to come up with another new in daily deals landscape by launching initial public offering.

Indeed, group buying sites are gaining strength from keen interest of consumers in the online shopping. Incredibly, buyers spent as much as $30.8 billion on online purchases this year's holiday season. The upsurge accounting for 13 per cent over the last year was recorded in online shopping of iPad, e-reading, laptops, books, magazines, consumer electronics, computer software, and toys, reports Sun-Times Chicago citing ComScore, a web intelligence service.

Giving consumers discounts on goods and services, group buying has emerged as popular method of shopping among internet-savvy public in the United States. Following the footsteps of group buying tycoon, a number of investors entered the American daily deal industry. Alone in Chicago bargain seekers account for sizeable numbers of websites offering discounts on quintessential foods, haircuts, summer cooking classes, golf lessons, parental training program, menswear, women fashion cloths and wears, and stationeries. Discounted tickets of hangouts and tourist attractions such as lyric opera of Chicago are drawing residents and tourists of Chicago towards group buying sites also known as daily deal websites.

Living Social, Eversave, Buywithme, Adility, Daily Deal Chicago, Gilt City, Fly Coupon, KGB, Plum District, Tippr, Trendy Loot, Buyzooka, CrowdClick, and Housewares Deals are few of the daily deal sites showering sometimes unbelievable price-cuts to the consumers. Some of them offer as much as 90 per cent discounts on goods and services. When people buy in group, the discounts aka local deals are the logical consequences. Merchants prefer to collaborate with daily deal sites to sell their products in low prices to a group of people at the prospect of guaranteed and repeated sales.

Chicago-based daily deal sites are getting conscious of fair market practices while delivering local deals to the online buyers, especially after the surfacing of lawsuit involving Groupon's vouchers. Short validation of vouchers unfairly promotes onerous online sales, critics say. Legal practitioners have come into action to unite against the practices that wreak buyers-unfriendly post-purchase experiences.