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| "Jew-pon": (Friendly) Jewish targeting |
The Pitch: We're all for someone offering personalized deals that we, as Jews, might like and have trouble finding on mainstream deals sites. But, did jdeal's marketing have to be so predictable? Its Facebook page states that "If you like buying quality products and services at heavily discounted prices and then bragging about it to your friends so they feel like schmucks for paying retail, you've come to the right place." We get it: Jews love a bargain -- and the only thing they like more than a bargain is talking about said bargains to their friends. (To be fair, the jdeal Promise features a more universal message: "At jdeal, we treat each customer like a mentsh. And we don’t want any tsuris!" Hey, not even a gentile can argue with that value proposition.
The Model: Leaving aside the fact that jdeal plays to the stereotype of Jewish bargain-hunter, the site does represent a value-add over Groupon or Living Social: It features deals of interest to Jews. The site as currently constituted offers deals in the New York area, where there is no shortage of Jewish product. To be sure, not all of the deals are Tribe-specific (recent deals included Little Shop of Crafts and a portrait session at a NY-area photographic studio). But the folks behind the site have clearly sought out specifically Jewish products for the benefit of their subscribers (coupons good at kosher eateries and JNF tree-planting deals were among the recent offers). The result is jdeal is ideal for a small subset of Jews. Most Jews in American-- gasp!-- do not consume kosher food and do not regularly buy Judaica. In order to make this site relevant beyond a small part of a small population, jdeal will have to get creative beyond things that only devout Jews find compelling. Before this happens, this site will remain a novelty and less than helpful to most Jews below the age of 35.
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| Coming to a Jewish market near you |
The Future: The obvious question is will this model fly outside New York? The current site invites you to sign-up for eventual jdeal launches in cities such as Baltimore, Los Angeles and Miami, all sizable Jewish markets. A problem arises in BuyATribe's home base, the San Francisco Bay Area, which as many as 450,000 Jews call home. This would make it a sizable market for such a service. But as any Bay Area Jew can tell you, there's next to no conspicuously Jewish businesses. For a marketing model based entirely on the appeal of similarly redhot Local space, this presents an obvious obstacle to jdeal's expansion.
Even Los Angeles, the country's second largest Jewish market, is somewhat atomized and geographically spread-out. Despite its Jewish population, LA has nothing approaching the concentration of Jewish businesses that New York boasts. Jdeal would have a tough time coming up with regular weekly offers of deals for local Jewish products in most American cities. Moreover, Groupon can offer the same six products every day of the year and find buyers, but how does jdeal fill 365 daily deals a year? How many Judaica and Hebrew lessons can one site hawk before the offers become tiresome?
A quick chat with jdeal co-founder Jodi Samuels revealed that she looks at this model as a viable, longterm business light on kitsch (and altruism). Make no mistake, jdeal is a business venture at its heart and soul. We'll skip the editorializing. You can draw your own conclusions.
What was the impetus behind starting jdeal?
Jmedia Connections is our company and we own Metroimma a site for Jewish Moms. The daily deal model seemed to be a perfect way to monetize the site. In addition I run another nonprofit that has 10,000 Jewish young professionals on it. So we had an automatic base to launch our offerings to [sic].
Does the world really need another Groupon... for Jews, no less?
Absolutely. Niche sites have value to consumers and merchants. A Jewish consumer, for instance, wants kosher deals, a kosher restaurant wants consumers who value the service beyond 50% off. Our copy and content speak to a Jewish audience. Another example would be an offer for a Jewish charity– these are targeted deals for a niche demographic.
With less than five million identified Jews in America, how do expect to build a business out of jdeal? Or, are we missing the point of the service?
Niche sites can be profitable with just 25,000 subscribers per geographic location so yes there is a market with five million people. A key driver in this subscriber value is the number of deals purchased during the user’s lifetime, By targeting a specific audience and increasing the conversion rate on each deal, the subscriber value will be higher.
Please describe your target user: age, gender, geographic location, etc. What outreach and marketing methods have thus far proven effective?
25-55, male and female but we know that females are higher users. Users in all the large Jewish geographic locations. We hosted battle of the bloggers which was a great way to get the attention of the blogger, pr campaigns, cross marketing with charities.
What are your longterm goals with jdeal?
Our goal in short and medium term is to expand nationally. Long term-- this is an immature market with lots of potential. We are exploring various options and depending how the industry matures and how consolidation plays out will depend on our longer term moves.
