Google Offers vs. Groupon: Local Deals Get Crowded

Remember just 5 weeks ago when we saw that Facebook Deals would be taking a swing at the Groupon-esque deal trend? Well, it looks like Google has the same idea with their new Google Offers, which launched yesterday.

Google tried to purchase Groupon for a whopping $5.3 billion dollars last winter, but after not acquiring them, they decided to compete by launching their own deal site, which (just like Groupon) will offer discounts to local businesses that are exclusive to Google Offers.

Currently only available in Portland, mostly due to their high volume of localized businesses, their first deal was $10 at Floyd’s Coffee for just $3. The next cities Google Offers will appear in are said to be San Francisco and New York, which is rumored to be later this summer.

While we don’t see anything ground breaking about Google Offers, it will be yet another way for deal-lovers to get discounted prices at their favorite local businesses, or try new places without the fear of spending too much money on something less-than amazing.

They also plan to mesh Google Offers with their anticipated payment system Google Wallet. This would allow for users to save their coupon to their wallet, rather than printing to redeem them. Even if they aren’t the first on the local-deal scene, we still can’t complain about a wider collection of deals to take advantage of.

Brad’s Deals asks readers: What items are you hoping to find on these daily deal sites?