Rogers Mobile Getting Started in the Deals Market
- Canada-based telecom operator Rogers Mobile is starting to propose mobiles deals called Rogers Mobile Offers. These offers are available upon subscription and provide access to discounts through SMS and MMS alerts. For now, they are only proposed in Toronto but should be extended to other towns in Canada.
- Payments are made using the mobile operator’s bill, thus avoiding card use for each purchase. Once the deal purchased, the customer only has to presents it to the merchant, showing the SMS he received.
- These kinds of offers are growing popular in the US where about 400 websites are now challenging Groupon, the market share of which dwindled down 52 to 48% from April to May 2011. One of its main rivals, LivingSocial, has been partially purchased by Amazon in 2010 as its market share went up from 20 to 24% in the same period. Large scale international players like MasterCard or Google are also getting started in this sector and benefit from the required means to succeed. Facebook, for its part, decided to drop the experiments it had started to work on.
- Rogers Mobile is one of the first mobile operators to get involved in this market after AT&T and T-Mobile (the offers of which are only addressing the US market). The mobile medium is particularly suited to strengthen the promising market of deals as it provides immediacy and connectivity and enhances the offers: customised and geolocated deals, secure and ergonomic payment using the mobile operator’s bill.