5 Daily Deal Sites for Small Business

This article is a reprint of Wise Bread's contribution to OPEN Forum from American Express -- where small business owners can get advice from experts and share tips with each other.

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If you thought the daily deals sites were only for those interested in restaurants, gifts, or spa services, you may be surprised and delighted to learn that small business owners can also find applicable discounts through these types of retailers. Here is a list of sites that offer exclusive bargains perfect for your home office or entrepreneurial dream.

Startups.com

If saving up to 90 percent on a hot web app is your thing, then Startups.com may be for you. Each deal is tested prior to being advertised, and the offerings have quite a variety. Past deals include apps for gaining more Twitter followers, organizing tips for your cloud-based documentation, professional translating tools, and web-based hosting. Startups.com offers a 30 day money back guarantee for all purchases, as well is a $10 refer-a-friend program.

BizDeals.com

For those looking for more tangible savings, BizDeals.com can help you out. By using the power of group discounting, the site can offer significant savings on items like telephones, video cameras, and tradeshow printing services. The majority of the deals still seem to be service-based (web design, for example), but there but are definitely deals here that aren’t posted elsewhere. [Note: Like all deal sites, do some research before committing to a purchase. Some of the bargains we found here were widely available to anyone and weren’t always the best price.] There are usually no more than two deals running at a time on this site.

AppSumo

The new love of my life is AppSumo, a highly addictive shopping site with everything from e-books to virtual seminars to design services. Perhaps the most valuable deals listed here are those that promise to educate. Techies will love the tutorials designed to up your programming skills or social media strategy. You don’t have to be a hard-core IT buff to enjoy the deals, however. Some of the most popular bargains would be useful to anyone; a recent deal involved a deep discount on test prep software for the SAT, ACT, GRE, and more! AppSumo has a 100 percent money back guarantee and gives $10 credit per each referred sale.

GroupPrice

When you’ve found yourself with a shrinking budget, but need some of the more traditional marketing and promotional services to fulfill your business plan, GroupPrice may be able to help. This site offers quite a few deals at a time, and the offerings range wildly. Some of the more notable deals include items that mid-sized businesses would likely buy anyway: automated calling services, remote staffing, and even online video spokespeople! If you’re still in the homegrown stages, however, you may find their venture capital pitch review or stock video footage services to be more your speed.

RapidBuyr

Looking for a decent price on a laptop, printer, or full-color ad in a major magazine? RapidBuyr strives to provide high-end goods and services to business owners with their competitive deals. Like more generalized deal sites, RapidBuyr offers a credit equal to the unused portion of a deal you purchase and are unable to redeem, and most deals run from 1-5 days (provided they don’t sell out first!) One handy feature of the site is an embedded price comparison chart that shows major competitor’s pricing and what they call “street pricing.” Our own searches found that they were, indeed, at least 10 percent lower than all outlets on the deals that were active at the time.

Finding more deal sites can be dangerous (especially if you like to shop.) As a small business owner or purchasing manager, however, they can also provide the potential to stretch that buck in some hard economic times.

Have you used a business deal site? Is there one you love that we missed?