The daily deal site has added to its application in order to boost the prominence of search.
Groupon has just announced that it has made considerable updates to its mobile app by increasing the importance of search – through a magnifying glass that is located on the bottom right of its application pages – and by supporting t-commerce on ten inch devices.
Now that the e-retailer has such as large number of daily deals, it is making them easier to find.
It has become clear to Groupon that it has grown to the size that it isn’t just enough to be able to browse through the various daily deals that it has to offer. At this size, mobile and t-commerce consumers expect to be able to search with greater ease in order to find what they want. Though they can still browse, if that is their preference, when they are looking for something specific, they can now use their smartphones and tablets to zoom in much more quickly.
Today, mobile and t-commerce active daily deals number approximately 37,000 on average.
This number would be impossible to sift through on a daily basis on a t-commerce app, unless a consumer had a tremendous amount of time on his or her hands. Being able to search has become a necessity with so many offers available at any given time.
This, and the fact that tablets are being used much more frequently, explains the moves toward t-commerce and the priority that has been given to search in the latest update to the company’s app. The searching feature allows a mobile device user to perform a query not only through the daily deals, but also within the merchandise listing sand in the travel listings from Groupon Getaways.
According to David Katz, the Groupon vice president of mobile “Search is part of a big strategic shift at Groupon.” He went on to add that “We started out doing a handful of deals each day and now we’ve got thousands of deals running every day. That really transforms the experience for users. You can still go to Groupon to see the handful of cool deals of the day. But we can also address specific needs.” He pointed out that this capability for seeking out something specific “is new for us and transforms how you use Groupon.”
That said, t-commerce has also become a priority, as it has now started supporting 10 inch devices.