Deal of the Day : Meeting Mister Ed

On New Year's Eve and thoughts turn to remembering the past year, what appropriate animal is there about memory?

Mister Ed was famous for being a talking horse on tv. This Mister Ed while being less famous is more human and has his own museum. Welcome to the Mister Ed's Elephant Museum. The museum is located in Orrtanna, Pennsylvania right on Route 30, the historic Lincoln Highway.

The museum consists of elephant related items that Mr. Ed has been collecting for years. He got hooked when he was given an elephant curio on his wedding day. Since then he has amassed over 2,000 elephant items from all over the world in his collection.

To visit the museum is free, so why is there a half off voucher? Well, there is more to this than just the museum, there is the gift shop and candy store. The gift shop contains hundreds of elephant gifts for you to add to your collection or you can buy some retro candy like wax bottles and candy necklaces as well as roasted peanuts.

This is classic road side Americana kitsch ... at it's best?

Get to spend $25 for only $12.50 with this certificate from Neofil.

Deal of the Day : Cat Circus

Today's deal of the day comes from Sin City itself, Las Vegas. It has nothing to do with vice or gambling but with running away to the circus. For $20 for an adult or $10 for a child you get a ticket to The World Famous Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, a 55% discount from Groupon.

It's family friendly entertainment consisting of clowns, dogs, and cats. Yes, I did say cats. While there is the old saying about something being as difficult as herding cats, this circus is able make cats turn in fine feline performing feats.

Sorry, if you want to run away with the circus that might not be possible if you are a human. They get most of their animal performers from local animal shelters. It is incredible how they can take the unwanted and make them stars.

On a personal note, a co-worker had highly recommended a cat circus to me a few years ago. She was very enthusiastic about it as she used to see these acts in Russia where she grew up. I had never heard of such a thing. Cats? Her English wasn't the best so I thought she must have meant lions, tigers, and cougars, after all what can you train a cat to do that would be that entertaining? I was intrigued and figured that I would go.

The circus was held to a packed crowd in a synagogue. The audience appeared to be predominately Russian. I didn't hear any roaring of lions or tigers and was beginning to think maybe she did mean cats, like kitty cats.

Sure enough, when the curtains opened out came clowns bouncing around and there were cats running around the stage. I must say that the acrobatic feats of the cats were a bit less than what the dogs did but still quite impressive. They even had a cat or two walk a tightrope. I can't even get a cat to walk up to me while holding a piece of food.

Deal of the Day : Tanks for the memories

What do you get for the man who has everything this holiday season? Why not something that caters to the little boy in him. If you are near Kasota, Minnesota, about 70 southwest of Minneapolis, Groupon is offering a half off voucher at Drive A Tank. For $239 you learn about tanks, get to drive an armored tank through a wooded course and fire World War II vintage machine guns during a 3-4 hour lesson. It is regularly a $400 value.

For an additional fee they even offer you the chance to drive a tank to crush a car. How sweet is that? Of course if your girlfriend wants a feeling of power, this offer is good for her too.

Free Lunch

To those that say that there is no such thing as a free lunch, we say phooey! The 1/2 off site Weforia.com is offering a $5 discount on purchases from its site. Just enter the promo code MERRY5 and they will take $5 off your purchase.

Now $5 off is not free, but they have 3 offers that cost $5 or less. So when you combine the promo code and these offers, you are getting it for free. Granted 3 places is not many but if you are in the general neighborhood you can enjoy a free lunch.

One of the offers is for Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant in Ashland, Massachusetts. By using the promo code you are getting $10 worth of pizza and Italian fare for nothing.

Another offer is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. You can get $10 worth of pub fare from hamburgers to pork tenderloin from Otis' Tailgators Sports Bar.

The last offer is from Tasti-D-Lite for $8 worth of soft serve ice cream in Chandler, Arizona. The 1/2 off offer is for $4 but with the $5 off you will get it for free. Not sure if they will pay you for the $1 difference.

The promo code is good until December 31st. The offers are good for 6months from purchase.

Deals of the Day : Pin Crazy

I must confess that I lean towards the unconventional and that even includes my choice of bowling. Growing up in New York the choice of bowling is quite clear maybe due to the lack of choice and that is 10-pin bowling. This is the typical bowling game throughout the country except for maybe New England.

In New England there is another alternative in which thousands of people prefer and that is candlepin bowling. This game is different in that the pins are skinny sticks that look like candles (and thus the name) and the ball is smaller about the size of a softball and under 3 pounds. The rules are similar to 10-pin except you get 3 chances to knock down the pins in a frame and the pins are not cleared after each ball during a frame. It is quite popular in New England that they even had their version of bowling for dollars. The game is not easy as speed definitely plays a big part of the strategy and scores are definitely a lot lower than 10-pin.

For those interested in playing this game and are in Boston, South Boston Candlepin is offering a deal through Groupon for 3 games of bowling for up to 6 people including shoe rental.

As for something more different is duckpin bowling. This game is rarely seen in the United States expect for areas around Rhode Island, Maryland and Oklahoma. This odd version is like the off-spring of 10-pin and candlepin bowling. Like candlepin, you get 3 chances to knock the pins down, the ball is much smaller than 10-pin, about 3 pounds but slightly larger than candlepin, and the pins are not cleared during a frame. The pins are also different from the other 2, they are kind of a squat version of 10-pin, fat in the middle.

I must confess that I prefer duckpin to the other two. The ball is smaller so there is less stress on the arm and the shape of the pins give you more pin action than candlepin. Groupon is also offering a deal for 2 hours of duckpin bowling at Meadowbrook Lanes in Warwick, Rhode Island.

With either deal you should have a good time, at least by making fun of your friends having to wear those ugly rental shoes.

Deal of the Day : Do you want bacon with that?

Bacon makes everything better. At least that is what many articles on food say and the saying is even printed on t-shirts. Oh sure bacon tastes good on hamburgers, wrapped around scallops, and sprinkled on salads, but everything? There are definitely some believers out there as I have heard of chocolate covered bacon, hot dogs wrapped in bacon, and Elvis' famous peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwich. Well if you are one of those believers, then today's deal of the day is for you and it comes from a business called The Baconery.

The Baconery is offering a $120 holiday mini-gift basket of bacon-infused treats (their words, not mine) for only $60 at CBS Local Deals in New York. Each basket contains 96 pieces of stuff with bacon from bacon brownies to chocolate bacon cookies to chocolate peanut butter bacon cookies. This offer runs through December 22nd. So if you like to combine your bacon fix with a sugar rush, this might be the perfect food for you.

Deal for a Second

2 weeks ago we mentioned an offer where there were around 30,000 vouchers available. This time we have an offer that really doesn't exist. This offer was for a $20 gift certificate to La Pizza House in Des Moines, Iowa for only $10 from LivingSocial. Not a very unusual deal as there are hundreds of pizzerias around the country offering a similar deal. But this one has to be special as they were only selling one voucher. The deal was to go for 2 days but in less then 1 day they met their goal and were sold out at 1 deal. You think that someone running their own business would set loftier goals for themselves.

Deal of the Day: Is that a snake in your pocket or are you wishing me a happy birthday?

After reviewing hundreds of half-off deals for birthday parties there is pretty much nothing new. There are the usual deals on cakes, balloons, pizzas and arcade games, clowns, and even group activities like ceramics. But this one did cause a second look.

A LivingSocial deal from Indianapolis, Indiana allows you to invite Snakehead Ed to your next child's birthday. No, Snakehead Ed's head is not shaped like a snake but he is a retired science teacher who likes to collect snakes. He has taken that hobby into a sideline of showing off his menagerie of reptiles for groups of kids. He will create a 45-minute program about his snakes and bring them to your child's party.

Something different for a party and it sounds educational and fun, unless someone suffers from ophidiophobia (fear of snakes).

Deal of the Day: Sex Sells?

Sex sells, at least with men anyway. But does it work on women too? Today's deal comes from Seattle, Washington from a company that will have their men wash your windows, clean your gutters, or pressure wash your house. The charge through Groupon is only $59, usually an $170 value. Nothing too unusual there, but the company is called Men In Kilts and they do their work while wearing kilts.

We have heard or seen women wearing bikinis to wash cars to drum up business but men wearing skirts? They do claim to be eco-friendly so you can say you are helping the environment while they clean. But isn't that sort of like a guy saying I buy Playboy for the articles? They don't take themselves too seriously as their tag line is: "We Clean. You Enjoy. Just Remember...No Peeking!".

Hmm, maybe it does work, over 500 sold so far.

Living Social Plus

Living Social has launched a new program called Living Social Plus. The program is in beta mode for now and is open to invited members only. The program is a little over a week old. I should be on top of these things but only found out about it when I got an invite from them.

It cost $20 per month to join their new premium membership and with it you get $25 each month in Deal Bucks. 5 of those Deal Bucks has to be spent that month or they expire. The other 20 Deal Bucks can be used anytime during the following months. If you don't spend your 20 Deal Bucks that month you can save them for later. The 20 Deal Bucks you receive each month are good for 5 years unless your state says otherwise.

This new membership seems like a pretty decent deal if you are a regular customer of Living Social as it means your average savings will be closer to 60% off instead of 50%. But they did add one more sweetener to the offer and that is you might be able to purchase a deal after it has been closed. Just contact Living Social within 48 hours of the closed offer and they will try their best to allow you to buy it. They don't offer any guarantees but I suspect that unless an offer has been sold out they will let you purchase an expired offer.

Here is what is on Living Social's website:

What's LivingSocial Plus?

LivingSocial Plus is our new premium membership program and the best way to get the most out of your LivingSocial experience. It's our little way of sharing the love with our most loyal and adventurous LivingSocial members, month after month.

What do I get?

You get 25 Deal Bucks to spend every month—5 for this month, and 20 for anytime you want (within five years, or longer if required by the laws of your state). You can use your Deal Bucks on all sorts of LivingSocial deal purchases.

You’ll also get exclusive access to selected deals after the clock runs out – just contact us within 48 hours and we'll do our very best to get another voucher just for you, subject to availability.

While Supplies Last

It is not too common for an offer to reach 1,000 buyers, let alone 10,000. Not only does a restaurant have to have great reviews but can afford the huge cost of so many offers. So one has to think that this offer is a typo. On DoubleTakeDeals.com, Jerusalem Cafe in Oak Park, Illinois is offering $30 gift certificates for $15. Not a bad deal for Mediterranean fare at a place with pretty good reviews, but the supply is limited - only 30,000 offers!

Now if we assume that the typical restaurant gets 1/2 of what is paid by the consumer, this offer would cost Jerusalem Cafe over $200,000 if they sell out. Let's see how long before this gets corrected.

Miscues in Marketing

Quoting Robert Burns, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men. Go oft awry". That sometimes seems to be my mantra when it comes to marketing on the Internet. It is not always my ideas but the promotional schemes of companies that I have worked for seem to not always go so well.

Maybe I should take some of that back. There was one time I was at a web start-up (or is that being redundant?) for an antique website (or is that an oxymoron?) and we decided to give out free umbrellas with the company logo on it. They were nice umbrellas, costing about $10 a piece. We had 200 of them to start. All anyone had to do was request one from the site.

It was early in the game and we were not even on the search engines yet. The offer went out live in the middle of the week and we had maybe 1 person request one. We figured that it might take a few weeks before the supply was used up. But when we came in on Monday the following week, there was over 1,000 requests for umbrellas! It took us awhile to figure out what had happened but we found out that there was a website that listed contest and freebies available on the web. I guess they found out about the site and posted it over the weekend. The whole week was spent on trying to send out umbrellas.

Next: Knives, Bombs and Movies

$1 Lunch Day at Groupon

Groupon.com sent out an email saying that this friday they will be offering thousands of lunch deals for $1. They will be partnering with Feeding America to provide half-a-million meals to families during the holiday season.

It sounds like a great idea, a way to help out families and also to get a meal on the cheap. But I was very disappointed to see how few options they had. In the New York city area alone, there were only 2 offers and they were already sold out by 8:30am. In Boston there was one lone restaurant and that was 14 miles south of the city. After checking over 25 cities around the United States, I only saw another offer in Austin, Texas and that was also sold out. There was nothing in places like Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, DC, etc.

Maybe this is only the beginning of the program and they will be able to raise money for Feeding America but from "thousands of lunch deals for $1" to only 4? It seems that they are running this promotion like they ran their IPO with lots of false starts. Hopefully they can get their act together.

* Spoke a little bit too soon. Around 10am they loaded up some more offers but still far from the thousands they said in their email. Noticing around a dozen offers for cities that have any offers posted and they are going fast. At least this is all for a good cause as Groupon is giving a portion of the proceeds to Feeding America.

Eating on the cheap

Just received an email from restaurant.com with an offer that I had to pass along. For a very limited time, they are offering $25 gift certificates to restaurants for $3. The offer is good from only November 16th through the 20th. After you place your order on their website, at checkout, type in the promo code "travel" and they will apply the discount.

It appears that if you purchase a gift certificate for a specific restaurant the amount of the discount may vary. You are probably better off getting an eGift card. The cost is $3 per card but they do add on a $1.50 handling fee. Still that isn't bad for a $25 gift certificate.

Restaurant.com has tens of thousands of restaurants participating in their program throughout the United States, so there is a good chance you can find something that you would like to go try.

I do have to offer two caveats about their certificates. They do not expire but there is some small print that you have to be aware of. Most of the restaurants have a minimum spending amount in the $35 range. So if you use the certificate you will still be spending another $10, but it is still a bargain that you can get a $35 meal for around $15.

The other caveat I find a little bit more harder to swallow in that the restaurants will automatically be tacking on an 18% gratuity to your bill. Some will even charge 20%. I don't mind paying a gratuity but it should be based on the customer's experience and not forced down their throats. All of the small print is easily available for each restaurant on the restaurant.com website.

Now where shall I go out to eat?

Saluting Veteran's on Veteran's Day

In order to make ToYou.com more useful, we have started to trawl the many half-off websites out there so we can list deals that some people might miss. Besides seeing the difference in the types of offers that exist from region to region in the United States (and boy, there is a difference in east coast and west coast offers) we came across one offer from LivingSocial.com.

In their Chicago section they were offering people the opportunity to have a care package worth $30 to be sent to a member of the U.S. armed forces. The cost to you would only be $15 and you would receive a U.S. flag as well. The offer runs until November 20th and is a great idea on this Veteran's Day or really any other day for that matter. There is never a bad day to support the troops.

It doesn't appear that this offer is limited to only people living in the Chicagoland area, so it does seem kind of strange that they didn't promote this offer in the dozens of other cities that LivingSocial covers.

If you are interested in the offer, go to: http://livingsocial.com/deals/166281-15-toward-a-care-package-for-us-troops-+-flag.

All Gone

I received a Living Social Escape e-mail last week about an 8-day trip to China. The price was $1,199 which sounded like a pretty decent price for a land tour, but who has the time and money to that far away. It was about a day later that I went to look at the fine print and noticed that the price included hotels, quite a few meals, AND airfare from New York city. I couldn't believe it and when I went to see what round trip airfare alone cost, this trip seemed to be a great bargain. Airfare alone to China could cost over $1,200.

The downside was that the trip had only 3 dates in November and December. So there wasn't much time to get your affairs in order to go on the trip, like getting your passport and visas. The other downside was the trip was only 8 days long. I had gone to China once before and it took a day to get over there. Jet lag didn't seem to be a problem when I was there but trying to get the most out of China you really need more time.

Well to make a long story shorter, by the time I made up my mind, the trip was sold out. They sold 120 tickets in about 2 days. I guess some of these trips you have to jump on really quick. So far this is really the only one that really caught my eye, but it looks like Living Social is really pushing to get into the travel business and are having offers daily. But some escapes are definitely better bargains than others. I mean which is the better bargain, $1,200 to go half way around the world or for 1/4 the price stay 2-nights in Missouri, transportation not included.

Brazilian War

If you live in the Boston Metro area, you can participate in a Brazilian steakhouse war on the cheap. Two steakhouses, Rio's Steakhouse and Midwest Grill are both offering $30 vouchers for 50% off at DealFind.com and Groupon.com respectively. Rio's has two locations and their voucher is good at their Quincy and Plymouth restaurants. The Midwest Grill voucher is good at their Cambridge and Saugus locations.

Both restaurants specialize in rodizio, in which the meat is served and carved at your table. The servers go from table to table carrying large skewers of meat. At your request they will carve off pieces onto your plate. The skewers can contain barbecued meats such as steak, pork, sausage, chicken, chicken hearts, lamb, etc. Some even serve roasted pineapple.

Besides being a vegetarian's nightmare, they both offer a buffet table on which there are hot and cold dishes and even a few without meat. Both are pretty casual restaurants with Rio's being a bit more casual as the building is a former IHOP.

I have been to both and they are both very good. Lots of choices and the barbecued dishes are quite tasty. Though I must say that after a few rounds the meat start tasting the same as they are basically seasoned the same way. From a value standpoint, I would select Rio's as their dinner price is $15 as opposed to $25 for the Midwest Grill in Cambridge. The Midwest Grill location in Saugus is cheaper at $21. But if you go for lunch, their prices are all basically the same around $14-13.

If you are interested hurry, both offers can be purchased through October 23rd or until they run out. The Midwest Grill seems to be the more popular with close to 1,000 vouchers being sold. But the Midwest Grill voucher expires on March 1, 2012 while the Rio's voucher never expires.

Special Offer

ToYou.com is offering their first promotional offer for a very short time only. We are giving away a ToYou.com penknife (pictured on the right) for people who register on ToYou.com. The penknife measures 2 1/2 inches long and consists of one blade, a nail file, a pair of scissors, tweezers, and a toothpick.

To get one, register on ToYou.com and enter "blogger" in the promo code. We will confirm that you are a winner with an email before mailing it out. Hurry supplies are very limited!

Offer is limited to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island addresses only.

History: In the Beginning

ToYou.com first started out as a website directory for businesses that delivered or came to your home or office. We envisioned businesses like restaurants, florists, groceries, doctors, barbers, office supplies, hardware, etc. would be listed. This way people could shop on the Internet without leaving their home or office.

The domain name was part of the slogan, "When you can't get it yourself, have it delivered ToYou.com". Pretty cute, right? Too cute. The first thing that we found out that people had a hard time remembering the domain name. Sure it was short and the catch phrase was easy to remember, but people could not figure out how to spell "to you". They would ask is that spelled with the number 2 or with the letter "u" or is that spelled with 2 "o's"? And this was before texting became big where people short-hand everything.


Other problems arose with getting the content or listings. At that time not a whole lot of businesses had websites and when we offered to build a simple site at nominal cost they would say that they don't have Internet access. We tried explaining that people could order over the phone but very few people would hear of it. Plus most businesses that could be listed were mostly restaurants and Chinese and sub shops at that. We wanted a more robust listing but it was almost impossible to find barbers or doctors who made house calls.

There were a few minor successes. We got a few listings as being a top website by somewhat dubious organizations and we did score big being named one of the top 120 websites by Boston magazine.

Unfortunately this business model didn't work out too well and while we tried a few promotions it never did really get it off the ground. It doesn't help when most staff knowledge is technical and none in marketing.

Next: Marketing Campaigns, Not as bad as New Coke but not a whole lot better.

Why China?

There are so many statistics and metrics that are available from a website using Google Analytics. It is a free tool that Google offers so you can collect all of these numbers. They give you some snippet of code that you place on your webpages and viola!, instant numbers.

Of course trying to figure out what all those numbers mean is not so easy. There are the usual statistics like how many visitors came to your site, from where did they come from, what keywords they may have used to search for your site, and even how long they spent on your site.

One statistic that they provide is quite easy to understand but I am not sure what to make of it. That statistic is what country are these viewers from. Now for a site written in English and targeted to the United States, one would expect the United States to be number 1 with possibly Canada number 2, and any other english speaking nation after that.

But no! For the past few months the number one country for visiting this site is China! The United States is a distant second, followed by Viet Name, Thailand, and Brazil. Now it doesn't seem that anyone outside the United States has registered on the site so all of these other visitors are not looking for 1/2 off certificates. But what are they looking for?

Maybe "toyou" means something else in Chinese or even Spanish but I haven't been able to figure that out. If it means something pornographic, maybe I should change the site's content to cash in...

Glorious Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July!

A great date to start a nation and what better day to start a blog. This blog will be a companion site to ToYou.com a website for helping you manage your discount certificates and vouchers.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for expressing ideas and thoughts of creating and running a business website and hopefully receive some feedback including suggestions.