The part where group deals fall down is the big margin that the sites are taking, this is the difference between a deal being a break even or loss leader and putting the business offering the deal in a big financial hole.
These margins are required to pay for a large sales team to convince businesses that they need to run these deals.
I think a more sustainable model is one closer to traditional affiliates marketing or self serve advertising. Where the deals site provides a platform that is largely self service and takes say a 5% cut rather than 50%.
This does loose one of the original ideals of group deals, that there was only 1 for an area (or at least a small amount each day) so each business running a deal was able to get a ton of exposure.
These margins are required to pay for a large sales team to convince businesses that they need to run these deals.
I think a more sustainable model is one closer to traditional affiliates marketing or self serve advertising. Where the deals site provides a platform that is largely self service and takes say a 5% cut rather than 50%.
This does loose one of the original ideals of group deals, that there was only 1 for an area (or at least a small amount each day) so each business running a deal was able to get a ton of exposure.