The increasingly competitive group discount and daily deal marketplace may be approaching saturation, judging by new data from Experian Hitwise which shows that market-leader Groupon saw total traffic tumble 50% between the second week in June and the third week in August. The question is whether this indicates growing group discount fatigue among consumers.

Sounds like the perfect time for Gannett to enter the market with "Deal Chicken."

It seems to me there are two real problems here:

(1.) People might, eventually, get sick of these deal programs, or at least hone in only on the tight niches that really excite them. (For instance, if someone offered a "Mac accessory of the day at half price" e-blast I might sign up for that one.)

(2.) The business model for Groupon is to get some other business to accept 25% of their regular price for a meal, product or service rendered. I don't think that's sustainable, and it's particularly disconcerting because the better it is as a marketing solution, the worse it is for the small business.

Echoing my sentiments back in 2007, I'd suggest small businesses avoid these crazy deal sites in the same essential way that I tried to warn people off of the mortgage-backed securities crazy just five years ago. *

*Note: I didn't actually do that. Had no idea, really.

At the JFP a little while back we had a bit of a tussle with the ShopLocal folks, a digital ad services company now owned by Gannett (the newspaper/TV conglomerate that owns our local daily paper and comes up with all sorts of irritating schemes).

ShopLocal is about anything other than "local" in the sense of "locally owned." The firestorm began with this entry JFP You're Just Wrong where ShopLocal offers a tepid defense for its business model, which is essentially to offer national chain store ads in flipbook format on the Web.

In so doing, the blogger coined the ridiculous phrase "national-local" ... which just goes to show you can convince yourself to say pretty much anything as long as you're getting paid enough.

(Also of note -- that entry has been scrubbed of its comments by yrs truly and our rascally posse. Nice.)

The whole ShopLocal concept is nothing but Orwellian "local washing," based on the suggestion that spending money with chain stores in your locale is somehow equivalent to shopping with locally owned businesses. (It's not.)

So I come across this recent entry of their site and note the caption on the image -- watch them swoon with pride: If there is one image that the team here at ShopLocal is proud of, its not of any of our digital solutions that we bring to market. Rather it's an image of our clients and the relationships we have with each of them. The longevity and multi-year partnerships that most of the retailers have with ShopLocal is truly unique and exciting.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Look at all those local clients. It must certainly make the pretenders at ShopLocal proud.

For real "shop local" thinkin' check out here or here. Viva los originales!