Similia Vol 28 No 2 – December 2016

Author: Sylvia Hicks

Abstract

Early in 2015 I was approached by the principal practitioner at the multidisciplinary clinic where I worked to advertise my services as a homeopath on Living Socials, a form of ‘Daily Deal Advertising’.

For those readers who are not familiar with daily deal advertising, it is an online platform where a business, such as Living Socials, offers a subscriber  the opportunity to purchase advertised goods and services at a reduced rate. A subscriber provides Living Socials with their contact details (email and  postcode) and then they begin to receive advertisements to purchase various online coupons from merchants. These coupons are similar to a deal you might find in an advertising brochure offering ‘buy one and get one free’. The coupons are often limited in quantity or the amount of time that they  are made available to the subscriber. This is intended to ‘entice’ the subscriber to make purchases. If a subscriber decides to purchase an online  coupon, the subscriber pays Living Socials the value of the online coupon and Living Socials keeps around 50% of the payment or an amount agreed upon by the parties involved. The remaining percentage is paid to the merchant.