The company launched Facebook Deals about four months ago in five major U.S. cities. The product, which offered online discounts and deals from local and national businesses to its large user-base, was intended as a competitor to group-buying services like Groupon and LivingSocial.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":324977,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,social,","session":"C"}']“After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks,” a Facebook spokesperson told Reuters. “We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses… We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.”
Facebook was not immediately available for comment.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
*Update: Facebook responded to us with a similar statement about its daily deals product:
After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks. We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses. We remain committed to building products to help local businesses connect with people, like Ads, Pages, Sponsored Stories, and Check-in Deals. We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More