Updated October 2019
There has been big changes in the Irish daily deals environment over the last few years. Several sites have closed including Grabone in 2015, while other sites like Dealrush, Escapes.ie and Pamper.ie have been bought over by the owner of Pigsback, Empathy Marketing. We’ve now updated things for 2019:
Grabone was a high profile casualty in the daily deal/group buying sector, but it follows a series of closures of other lower profile websites. I’ve put together a list of daily deal sites that are no longer with us and those that are still standing.
Who is still standing?
Now in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 seven years after Groupon and LivingSocial came on the scene we have a greatly reduced field of group buying sites. Here is a list of daily deal sites that are still up and running:
- Groupon — International group buying site and trailblazer for the group/coupon phenomena.
- LivingSocial — Hot on the heels of Groupon. Actually formed before Groupon in 2010. LivingSocial merged with Daily Mail owned Wowcher earlier in 2016.
- Pigsback — An established Irish website that moved into daily deals.
- luxurybreaks.ie — Another site run by Pigsback dealing in luxury breaks.
- thediningroom.ie — And another one by Pigsback… dealing in dining/restaurant deals.
- Pamper.ie — Bought by the owner of Pigsback in early 2017. Not surprisingly concentrates on beauty and spa deals.
- Escapes.ie — Also bought by the owner of Pigsback in early 2017. The clue is in the name again… hotels, holidays and short breaks.
- Oceandeals.ie — Run by Ocean FM deals focus on Sligo, Donegal and the north west.
- ie.biuky.com — Deals on beauty products.
- Justgolf.ie — Used to be justtreats.ie but now it’s just golf!
- mygolfdeals.ie — Yes you guessed right… more golf deals!
- thetaste.ie — Restaurant and meal deals.
Who is sadly no longer with us?
Once Groupon had broken into the scene everyone and their mother decided running a daily deals site was the thing to do… sure what could go wrong; it was like printing money. Sadly not it didn’t work out that way for more than a few.
Grabone
Announced their impending closure in early November 2015. Since 2011 Grabone was one of the biggest daily deal sites in Ireland and provided 47,562 deals to nearly 5,000 merchants.
Dealrush
Dealrush — This popular daily deals site was bought by the owner of Pigsback in late 2016. Pigsback no longer appear to be maintaining the site.
BoardsDeals
Boards.ie closed BoardsDeals in 2012 after having run for two years and providing over a 1,000 deals in Ireland.
Lots of other deal sites
Take a very deep breath and see if you can read them all out in one go:
BagaDeal.iebigbaddeal.combundlebee.iedafadeals.comcrazydeals.iedealbuzz.iedolideals.iebeddeals.iefoffit.comgirliedeals.iegr8fish.ieibood.iejusttreats.ie— now it’s just golfmaddeal.comtodaysdeals.ietopdeals.iewowdeals.ieyourdeal.ieonoffer.iethedealking.iegruupy.commegadeals.iefeatured.iegrabadeal.ienewstalk.ie/about/deal-of-the-day— Yes Newstalk had their own daily dealsjobs.ie/Deals— and so did jobs.iesnapicity.comsinirgy.comcatchthemonkey.iegrouple.ieeasonoffers.comjammygit.iemyirishvouchers.comi-deal.iemoocher.iesmartsave.iegetdeals.ie— Deals across Ireland. Run by the Golden Pages.iwantthisdeal.ie— Offer a limited number of shopping deals.biteabargain.ie– Restaurant and meal dealssmartsearch.ie— Mostly goods but some services toodeals.advertiser.ie— Baby of by the Galway Advertiser. Provides deals in Galway. At the time of writing it did not appear to have any active deals.menupages.ie— Menu Pages is still up and running but no longer appears to be running deals.rewardingtimes.ie— Run by the Irish Times. A varied deal offering. At the time of writing some deals did not appear to be active.
Know of other daily deals sites in Ireland? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list.