My Living Social Summer

Sites like Groupon have been getting a bit of a bad press recently. Today, my mother told me about this article in the Guardian that highlights negative Groupon experiences and, a few months ago, my colleague passed on this article about the risk that merchants are taking they use the site to sell deals. My ethical conscience now feels a little sad.

I started using Living Social in the spring of this year. I liked the idea of very generous, cut price offers that get Londoners out of the house and spending money in a different part of town, especially during a period of economic gloom where the temptation can be to sit tight at home and save those pennies. I signed up to Living Social after seeing that a friend had advertised on Facebook that he had purchased a massage (see, the viral advertising works - you get a free deal if three of your friends also purchase it). I do a like my spa treatments, but find £60 a little bit steep on a regular basis, so paying approximately £28 appealed. I was actually quite relieved when the merchant cancelled the deal due to a lack of capacity, as I was struggling to fit an appointment into my busy schedule. But then I was on their mailing list and my Living Social summer began....

My next offer was a haircut in Chalk Farm. Women's haircuts aren't cheap in inner London, so I jumped at the chance of saving some cash, even if it meant journeying to a new neighbourhood, rather than the hairdressers on my street.  I felt a little guilty not paying the full whack, but I tipped well, and it was nice to see a different part of London.

I then got into the swing of it and joined Groupon and Keynoir too. Over the summer I purchased a cut price Time Out subscription; a few more hair cuts in different parts of town; a beauty treatment or two; a photography lesson; some Zumba exercise classes; a life coaching and nutritionist session; three home cleaning visits; some ready meals; an artisan Nudo food set; some wine; meals at various restaurants; tickets to see the Pirates exhibition at the Docklands museum; afternoon tea; an Ocado order with a year's worth of free delivery; and a vegetarian Spanish cookery class that I attended today.

The best experiences were, on the whole, the restaurants. I did cheat a bit and purchase offers at places I already knew were good, like Islington favourite's Frederick's (a catch up with Andrew) and Public House (my brother's birthday treat). But I also got introduced to great new places, like Dolcetto, the lovely Italian in Chapel Market (a much needed chat with Rachel), and Axis at One Aldwych (James's belated birthday present).  I bought a lovely spa day and afternoon tea at the Park Lane Hilton for my mum's mother's day present (a bargain at £89 for both of us) - the treatments (a hot stone massage and pedicure) were top quality, and the chocolate afternoon tea with fizz was amazing. The haircut at Atherton Cox was impressive. A sports masseurs gave me some good advice about managing my RSI by warming up the muscles in my arm. The chilli salsa and spaghetti in the Nudo set were delicious.  It has been great to have a cleaner session to call on when I am falling behind with the housework. The cookery class was energising, as was the Zumba. And my day out at the Docklands Museum with Ali, 9, and Adam, 7, (both children of different Islington Liberal Democrat councillors) was one I will not forget in a hurry. 

And the worst? One of my manicure and pedicure sessions was not, shall we say, at the most high class salon, and I didn't really feel very pampered at the end of it. I wasn't hugely impressed by the nutritionist - I wanted advice on how to improve my vegetarian diet, rather than on abandoning it. The photography lesson made me a lot more scared of my DSLR camera. The "Chef Prepared Healthy Meals" weren't exactly what I was expecting, arriving in sachets with a sell by date of Sept 2012 - I assumed that they would be nice, fresh ready meals (although to be fair, I didn't read the description on the website). And one hair cut and colour, that I travelled across London for, resulted in a very protracted appointment where the young man applying the colour appeared not to know how to deal with my roots and then the whole process had to be repeated under the supervision of one of his other colleagues.

Saying this, it has been mentally refreshing to travel to new parts of London. Holland Park was a lovely venue for the photography class. Travelling on the DLR to the Docklands Museum was fun. Park Royal was... more of a trek to get to this morning in the fog, but it got me up and out on a Sunday morning.  

After purchasing so many of these offers, I can see that some have been more though through than others. Ocado's free delivery is a good hook to get you using their site, and they require you sign up to an automatic renewal of the (pay for) delivery pass, that can be cancelled. The restaurants benefit from the extra spend on drinks and The Docklands Museum has generated a new fan. But I'm really not sure what is in it for the places that aren't going to show you a great service. The offers are not usually conditional on you buying anything else, so surely the only way that businesses are really going to benefit is by impressing you so that you become a regular customer. I'm clearly not going to trek half the way across London to get my haircut by a lousy hairdresser when I have lots of good hairdressers on my doorstep. The other losers sit at the other end of the spectrum and are the very expensive establishments. I'm buying some services through these offers that are amazing, but I would not otherwise be able to afford them and therefore I'm not going to be going back for more any time soon.

Living Social and the like do sometimes feel like the closest thing to a free lunch, as the discounts are substantial. But you need to keep track of all of your offers - I'm sure a lot of the money is made when the vouchers expire, laying forgotten in someone's inbox.  At one point I got overwhelmed and I had to write them all out on a sheet with expiry dates next to them.  I prefer the upmarket Keynoir (the offers seem well selected) and the mainstream Living Social (the site and their emails are well designed) over Groupon. But that's just a personal thing. 

And will I continue using them? I actually have a few more offers left to use, but I'm slowing down at the moment because I have very few free evenings or days left before Christmas. What started as something to fill a social diary that had more space in it than when I was a councillor, has turned into another thing I'm struggling to fit into my life. And although it is nice to save pennies (well lots of pounds actually), I'm someone who likes to think about the implications of where I spend my money - so maybe in future I will avoid the faff of printing out vouchers and long trips across town and return to my lovely local hairdressers and pay £30 more for a cut (they need to cover their costs and pay their staff, and much needed taxes, after all..). Or maybe I won't be able to resist the temptation of another bargain. But my hope is that good retailers will get wise and come up with a better way of marketing themselves to new customers that fits in better with my "I'm okay, you're okay" philosophy on life.