Wowcher and Groupon are both sites that give people to sign up and enjoy a range of deals and offers on a wide variety of products and activities, which gives people the opportunity to do things they’d never be able to afford for a cheaper price with one of their vouchers. Both sites offer incredible deals and make their customers very happy, but it can be debated which of the sites is actually better.
Wowcher
When visiting the sites themselves they present themselves incredibly different: Wowcher automatically catches your eye with its loud pink design and large pictures that cover the front page and show all of their most popular deals. Their website asks you automatically to input your location so that they can show you their most relevant deals that are available in your area. This feature is particularly useful as it means that you can always find an offer for whatever you’re looking for, meaning that if you’re at home and want to browse for a deal on an everyday item then you can easily do this, or, seeing as Wowcher seem better at promoting offers for special events then you can easily find something for a special day, or even search for offers for a day away from home.
Wowcher displays a wide range of categories to browse through on their website, even including a more+ button on the category bar which gives you the chance to look through even more categories than originally advertised. Their categories include location based deals, shopping, travel, beauty, garden, home, activities, fashion, health & fitness, courses, electronics, jewellery, adult, food & drink, home essentials and children & baby so you can always find anything at all that you might be looking for when you visit their website.
While Wowcher offers an extensive range of categories to browse through, which includes options like home, beauty and garden meaning that you can search for everyday items that you can get discounts on, it seems to focus more on event-based items such as shopping, travel, activities and courses which shows that their site wants you to buy the items and offers that you wouldn’t normally buy without their vouchers, and can be seen as special treats. This can mean that you will rely on Wowcher more as an option for days where you plan to treat yourself rather than a money-saving option.Both websites monitor your location so that they can offer you the most relevant deals that they have for your area, which is useful as you can always find an offer that you can use every day while browsing the site.
Groupon
When you visit Groupon’s site, it has a more subtle design and shows a variety of deals on the front page, ranging from spa deals to furniture and anything in between. This design is certainly less eye-catching but also helps you to focus more on the actual offers that they are advertising, as they perfectly set the site out so that you can immediately see the most attractive deals that you might be looking for.
Groupon offers 15% off for your first time, which can be an exciting incentive considering a lot of their deals mean that the products you find on their site are already incredibly well priced. This adds well to the selection of categories that you can find on Groupon, as they are less varied than Wowcher and while this means they may be less specific it doesn’t mean that they are any harder to navigate.
Groupon displays significantly less categories on their home page, choosing to limit the options to wider groupings like local, goods, getaways, events, discount codes and staycation. These smaller categories mean that you can browse through each section more, however when you visit each category you can see more options to choose from, i.e. in local they allow you to select personal services, beauty & spas, things to do, health & fitness, food & drink, automotive, retail and home improvement. The existence of the separate sections allow you to find the specific products and offers that you may be looking for and means that you can be sure to easily find events and products relating to the category you have chosen.
Groupon seems to be designed to be more accessible as a money-saving site, as it offers vouchers for not only special events and treats but also many everyday items which means that you can use it for anything you might be looking for easily, rather than specifically browsing the site only when you intend to treat yourself.
Groupon also offers discount codes on specific brands as well as just items and events, with brands including Amazon, eBay, Nike, Halfords, First Choice, House of Frazer, Thomson Holidays, Debenhams, Thomas Cook, ao.com, New Look, Missguided, Very, ASOS, Currys and Marks & Spencer. With brands like this working with them, it means that they have a wider range of discounts and offers to provide on their site, meaning you can get your branded buys as well without the cost.
Which is better?
Both sites offer amazing deals on items that you would normally spend a fortune on, and both know that they can cater to a specific target audience through advertising specific items more than others. However, Wowcher’s advertisement seems to focus mainly on the kind of deals that are available for a short period of time and are for events and activities, whereas Groupon offers the chance to casually browse their site for a deal that you might find on an everyday item that you can then buy.
With this in mind, it could mean that you would only browse Wowcher when you have the money and time to look for a day out or activity that they might offer on their site, whereas you could be more likely to look on Groupon casually and then accidentally find a deal that you couldn’t resist. With this in mind, it could mean that Groupon isn’t necessarily best for your budget if you’re going on there to try and save money and end up booking yourself a spa weekend away, but in our eyes, it does mean that its advertising techniques could be working better than that of Wowcher.
It also seems as though Groupon’s location-based deals seem to be more based on the location that you have entered than those found on Wowcher, as the offers on Wowcher either seem to be the kind of offers you can use mostly online or nationwide or location-specific offers aren’t entirely in the location that you’ve specified. Whereas, when you look through all of the options that Groupon provide, they are all within your area and consider all of the different kinds of activities that you may be taking part in nearby, as well as offering money off on items that you can buy nearby.
Overall, I’d say that the offers that you can find on Groupon seem to be more specific to what you could be looking for, as well as offering a wider range of products that you can use their deals on.
