In the three months to the end of August, €10m was spent in the Republic of Ireland on the various daily deal sites, such as Groupon, Pigsback and GrabOne, according to new data from deal aggregation service Sift.
According to Sift, some 325,000 vouchers were sold in the three months.
Sift CEO Shane Hayes explained: “August was a particularly strong month, with €4.4m worth of vouchers sold representing a 35pc increase on July which in turn was a 27pc increase on June.”
Hayes says the fact that this particular e-commerce market grew strongly over the traditional holiday months of July and August indicates the daily deal phenomenon shows no sign of slowing down, despite fears arising recently in the US after Groupon postponed its IPO.
“Maybe people are browsing daily deal sites on their ‘staycations’ rather than living it up on the beach in Spain,” Hayes quipped.
The best performance in the month came from Groupon, formerly known as Citydeal. Its gross revenues increased to €2.3m and it increased its market share to 52pc.
Rumours abound that one of the reason’s Groupon pulled its IPO was due to trading difficulties.
“We are certainly not seeing any trading difficulties for Groupon in Ireland, where they increased their sales by over 50pc month to month,” said Hayes. “Similarly, in the UK, the Siftie.co.uk July data showed them trouncing the opposition with a 77pc market share.”
