GrouponPro
Bought it, love it, been hacking with it for a couple of months, have the latest version. Random thoughts... You should be good at CSS since Agriya's default design is fugly and must be replaced ASAP IMHO. Everything is completely customizable. (I have created a
beautiful front-end which looks nothing like the default Agriya design. Sorry, not going to link to it from here.) The code is very semantic and logical but short on comments. The GrouponPro admin site is very powerful - you could configure your entire site, upload your logo, enter your gateway/merchant info (i.e. Paypal Payments Pro) and never touch a line of code. But to take your clone to the next level you're going to want to hack the stylesheet, edit the views, maybe even crack open the controllers. Installation is
relatively easy. The integrated html emailer is
awesome. In order to run deals and expect to make more than a few sales a day requires
lots of promotion.
Groupbuyingsite
Haven't bought it. Looked at the back end, ran a test deal and played around. Quick thoughts... I love how easy it installs - WP plugin, can't get any easier than that. It uses Paypal Payments Pro = good too. The default design is actually tolerable and I love how integrated the blog and comments are. Now for the bad stuff... A lot of things appear to be broken. I added media in the New Deal screen and it didn't show up on the deal view. I added an email account to the 'notify me of new deals' db but did not get an email notification when the deal posted. I created an
account, didn't get the confirmation email that was promised, and couldn't log in. The fact that the html emailer (which is supposed to be using MailChimp) is broken really concerns me. The daily email blast is too important a process to be left to chance. If you're going to pay hundreds of dollars for a piece of software that you're going to
live in for the next few months you should be demanding a fully functional demo, and ideally the contact info/link of a happy customer.
But Groupbuyingsite does show promise. Definitely one to keep your eye on...if you want to wait around until next year to start your Groupon clone.
Gmimi
Bought it. Works well. The browser experience is snappy. Downside: the payments page is basically a Paypal button. Unacceptable. Which is why I switched to Agriya's product.
The thought leaders say you should have
at least 10k email addresses in your database before running deals. So once you finish your site, you have to drive traffic to the its Daily Email signup form. The competitors - Groupon, LivingSocial etc - are paying $5-$15
per email address for email addresses via Facebook ads etc. How to hack the customer acquisition problem? The other challenges - sourcing deals from merchants, writing copy and taking photos, contracts, LLC stuff - are relatively easy.