Fitness Deals!

[Winning]

Ok, so on my way home from the gym the other day an idea popped in my mind. I haven't looked much in to it but I'd like to know what others think.

There are sites that offer daily deals on products. For example, a huge player in this field is Woot. They used to only promote one product per day and nearly always sold out of it because of the nice price reduction. Now they have an assortment of pages for deals each day (not really the point.. just saying they've expanded).

I searched and haven't found a nice daily deal site for fitness enthusiasts (supplements, equipment, clothing, etc).

On the other hand, I've seen some fitness related sites that offer a monthly subscription for like $20 to get samples of supplements each month.. but nothing like a daily deal site.

What do you guys think? Worth pursuing this? Would love all the constructive criticism, etc.

I'd kind of model it like MJ did with Limos-- I would contact companies in the fitness industry and see if they wanted to offer a daily deal for one of their products on our site. They wouldn't pay a dime unless we generated them sales-- and if we did generate them sales, we'd take a percentage.

Let me know fellow fastlaners!!

 

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[Y.B.]

http://gearup.active.com/Events.aspx?ReturnUrl=/

One for yoga - http://yoginideals.com/

 

[Deon]

You can do that... Just know that Groupon has fitness deals ALL THE TIME. (X classes for $30, 5-day bootcamp for $, etc)

I'm not discouraging you. Just pointing that out in case you haven't seen it.

 

[theag]

Only one way to know.

Build a simple site for it with some fake deals.
Allow people to sign up.
Buy some fitness traffic.
???
Profit.

Noah Kagan has an article somewhere on how he started appsumo. Might want to search for that.

 

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[Winning]

You can do that... Just know that Groupon has fitness deals ALL THE TIME. (X classes for $30, 5-day bootcamp for $, etc)

I'm not discouraging you. Just pointing that out in case you haven't seen it.

I don't think we'd be competing with Groupon.. aren't they more for like adventure or class type offers? We would most likely just do products like supplements and clothing.

Thanks for the response though!

 

[Winning]

Only one way to know.

Build a simple site for it with some fake deals.
Allow people to sign up.
Buy some fitness traffic.
???
Profit.

Noah Kagan has an article somewhere on how he started appsumo. Might want to search for that.

Yeah, I think I can try that out, but I'd loose money because I'd have to offer a deal and then buy the product at face value.. only way to not loose money is to just allow sign ups and see how many people are interested... but then I'd loose credibility because they signed up thinking there was a deal. Maybe I can say something like sold out after they sign up "Check back later"

One question-- where would you recommend to buy fitness traffic??

I'll check out appsumo and Noah's story!

Thanks!

 

[Winning]

http://gearup.active.com/Events.aspx?ReturnUrl=/

One for yoga - http://yoginideals.com/

I saw the gearup website and it looks like they have a lot going on .. sort of how Woot has become. I wanted to keep it simple at one deal per day.
Yoginideals has no deals and doesn't look like they are doing well/did well.

Hmm.. atleast the gearup site validates the idea a bit for the need.

 

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[hestati]

This is actually a good idea. See Groupon became crap and you can probably niche groupon well (create separate sites for automotive, fitness etc deals).

The only problem I see is that deep discount model sucks big times. Read about it, it is rarely profitable for businesses to promote themselves that way. But hey, Groupon still does it.

 

[Winning]

This is actually a good idea. See Groupon became crap and you can probably niche groupon well (create separate sites for automotive, fitness etc deals).

The only problem I see is that deep discount model sucks big times. Read about it, it is rarely profitable for businesses to promote themselves that way. But hey, Groupon still does it.

Yeah, I read a few articles that Groupon is actually trying to change their model that they helped invent/create because it isn't profitable anymore. That's the only scary part to getting in this business... it may be a dying model. Who knows unless its tested because each market can be a bit different.

Great thoughts, thanks for the reply!

 

[GravyBoat]

I like the idea man, do exactly as @theag said and report back. Keep in mind:
How will you find the deals of the day?
Will you have to post/modify the site each day... or else automate (pay VA)?
Can you score better deals by taking to resellers/MFG's of certain fitness products that you can think of off the top of your head?

Godspeed with the action-taking, I would really like to see this pan out. I'd even check it out for purchase myself.

 

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[theag]

One question-- where would you recommend to buy fitness traffic??

I would start with facebook ads. Easy to target fitness people there because they like a lot of related pages.

 

[Winning]

I like the idea man, do exactly as @theag said and report back. Keep in mind:
How will you find the deals of the day?
Will you have to post/modify the site each day... or else automate (pay VA)?
Can you score better deals by taking to resellers/MFG's of certain fitness products that you can think of off the top of your head?

Godspeed with the action-taking, I would really like to see this pan out. I'd even check it out for purchase myself.

Thanks- and well we aren't finding daily deals. We go out to companies and ask them if they'd like to have a flash sale(24 hours) of one of their products. We then add that to our site and users purchase directly from us with the discount. To get the deals flowing, its going to take a lot of advertising to have a reputable userbase so that companies are comfortable and willing to discount their products to gain mass sales on our platform.

The site will need to be updated everyday.

Hope that clarifies. Let me know what you think!

 

[Winning]

I would start with facebook ads. Easy to target fitness people there because they like a lot of related pages.

Great, thanks for the recommendation! I've just been kind of iffy about Facebook ads after watching a video and reading reports that they game their paid ads. I could go out to the "Fitness" pages that have hundreds of thousands of likes and sponsor them directly as well. Will look in to this.

 

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[oble01]

I've no doubt this idea can work. I actually had this idea a couple of years back and build a site called www.protein-deals.co.uk. As the name suggests, the focus was on protein and supplements. To cut a long story short I got bored and moved into something else but it can definitely work.

Personally id recommend focusing on things that people buy often and repeatedly(supplements for example) rather than one off big purchases (machines for example). I can see more value in building a community of people who check regularly for deals.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Winning]

I've no doubt this idea can work. I actually had this idea a couple of years back and build a site called www.protein-deals.co.uk. As the name suggests, the focus was on protein and supplements. To cut a long story short I got bored and moved into something else but it can definitely work.

Personally id recommend focusing on things that people buy often and repeatedly(supplements for example) rather than one off big purchases (machines for example). I can see more value in building a community of people who check regularly for deals.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, I mean its a pretty cool idea that will help tons of people get much better deals on their supplements,clothing,etc... Why did you get bored of the idea? Just ventured in to something else, or?

 

[Winning]

Any other thoughts/advice on this idea? Much appreciated!

 

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[Winning]

UPDATE: I don't think this is the million dollar idea and I'm not starting this project. I got some great opinions on here and would still love to see this done but I'm not too sure. These supplement/gym clothing companies are already doing their own sales regularly. I looked at it more and I had a much bigger con than pro list.

Cheers!

 

[Durete]

Just a quick note: Several countries have national or semi-national sites like this.
A dutch/belgium site has been up for the last 7+ years for this. Actually bought my weighted vest from them.

 

[Durete]

My appologies for the triple post,
Internet lagged and posted 3 times the same post- sadly there is no delete button.

 

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[Durete]

My appologies for the triple post,
Internet lagged and posted 3 times the same post- sadly there is no delete button.

 

[Winning]

Just a quick note: Several countries have national or semi-national sites like this.
A dutch/belgium site has been up for the last 7+ years for this. Actually bought my weighted vest from them.

Ohh, thats interesting. Do you mind sharing the link or sending it to me via PM?

 

[Durete]

Ohh, thats interesting. Do you mind sharing the link or sending it to me via PM?

Send in PM as requested.

 

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[Winning]

Send in PM as requested.

Checking out the site, appreciate it!

 

[Stu_Hefner]

I think if you can find a way to make this profitable or worth it for the companies involved you will do well. Last I read, groupon take too much from the business owners.

Like to see you go ahead with it, I might be interested in buying traffic in this regard just to see if I'm right lol. You would be able to target fitness traffic with paid advertising and I don't see why you can't target groupons fan base too. FB ads that targeting those that like both fitness related things and groupon. You then know they are aware of the daily deal structure, also in the niche youre marketing for. I see an op for a viral campaign coming from this too for fb and instagram.

 

[Winning]

I think if you can find a way to make this profitable or worth it for the companies involved you will do well. Last I read, groupon take too much from the business owners.

Like to see you go ahead with it, I might be interested in buying traffic in this regard just to see if I'm right lol. You would be able to target fitness traffic with paid advertising and I don't see why you can't target groupons fan base too. FB ads that targeting those that like both fitness related things and groupon. You then know they are aware of the daily deal structure, also in the niche youre marketing for. I see an op for a viral campaign coming from this too for fb and instagram.

Yeah, so what you mean is you'd create a dummy site with like a "Sign Up to Email newsletter to know when we launch" type of landing page and then buy paid traffic towards the site?

 

[Stu_Hefner]

Yes, perhaps. But you could also try and secure a proper deal. It's risk free. Approach some of those supplement companies. Perhaps one of those detox teas (there's so many of them) and explain to them your proposition. It's risk free on their behalf. You bring in sales they win. You don't, they dont lose anything. I dont think it will be much different to how a coupon code works. They just need to offer the product at a slight discount. Should it work then you have validated your idea.

Yeah, so what you mean is you'd create a dummy site with like a "Sign Up to Email newsletter to know when we launch" type of landing page and then buy paid traffic towards the site?

 

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[Winning]

Yes, perhaps. But you could also try and secure a proper deal. It's risk free. Approach some of those supplement companies. Perhaps one of those detox teas (there's so many of them) and explain to them your proposition. It's risk free on their behalf. You bring in sales they win. You don't, they dont lose anything. I dont think it will be much different to how a coupon code works. They just need to offer the product at a slight discount. Should it work then you have validated your idea.

Yeah, I think finding people that likes fitness deals will be the easy part. Finding companies that want to cut their profits to have a flash deal with be SUPER difficult. We'll see how this goes if I do pursue going with it.

 

[Winning]

Update: I've still been pondering with this idea. I was thinking there must be a way to modify this idea a bit to work. Here is the better idea on how we'd still provide daily deals while also making money. Instead of asking supplement/clothing/fitness product companies to cut the price of their products we'll just actively search the web for companies that are already slashing the price on their products (there are many already)... and we will add the affiliate link to the product on our daily deal website.

It would sort of be like RetailMeNot, etc and those sites that offer coupon codes for sites but instead this would be only for fitness products.

What do you guys think? Ideas? Constructive criticism? Encouragement? Anything welcome!

 

[Winning]

Anyone?

 

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[townhaus]

I started a niche daily deals. Obviously think its a great idea, but i had to put it on hold due to lack of capital to launch properly (i built the website, go a few deals signed up, but then it was not sustainable for me due to lack of advertising funds). It's still the main business idea that i want to to get back into and grow (focused right now on a consulting gig that will hopefully bring in cash for it). My problem i found is that there is a chicken and egg scenario, where you need the customers (have with a list of 1-10k, at a minimum, subscribers) before suppliers would really want to deal with you (to make sales, instead of doing a favour) and also have enough sales within a few months to be able to grow.
In my opinion, the way to start and make it work is to buy ads, as mentioned (facebook, adwords, banners, mailing lists) and this takes some upfront capital for advertising, which i estimated realistically $5-10k instead of something that can be bootstrapped for less. I think if you have, or can find an investor to spend around $10k for advertising for an initial few months, it will work.

 

[Winning]

I started a niche daily deals. Obviously think its a great idea, but i had to put it on hold due to lack of capital to launch properly (i built the website, go a few deals signed up, but then it was not sustainable for me due to lack of advertising funds). It's still the main business idea that i want to to get back into and grow (focused right now on a consulting gig that will hopefully bring in cash for it). My problem i found is that there is a chicken and egg scenario, where you need the customers (have with a list of 1-10k, at a minimum, subscribers) before suppliers would really want to deal with you (to make sales, instead of doing a favour) and also have enough sales within a few months to be able to grow.
In my opinion, the way to start and make it work is to buy ads, as mentioned (facebook, adwords, banners, mailing lists) and this takes some upfront capital for advertising, which i estimated realistically $5-10k instead of something that can be bootstrapped for less. I think if you have, or can find an investor to spend around $10k for advertising for an initial few months, it will work.

Hey, thanks for your input! I think that you definitely need some paid advertising/traffic like you said to get a site like this up and running. However, we don't need to find suppliers in the new idea I modified. Instead of going directly to the suppliers, we would browse the web for offers that are already happening on sites like Amazon, Walmart, Sears, etc on fitness products/supplements. We would then list it on the website for others to find out about. The way we would make money would not be from the supplier itself but it would be from affiliate programs from Amazon, Walmart, etc

See what I mean?