Amazon has swung the axe on its daily deals services in a further sign that this business model is nothing but a passing fad.
A message posted on the Amazon Local site says it will be closing down on 18 December, while all deals purchased through the site before this will remain valid, TechCrunch reports.
It’s a further nail in the daily deals coffin and follows LivingSocial, which is partly owned by Amazon, cutting 20% of its workforce earlier this month.
The biggest player in the daily deals market Groupon is also facing tough times, laying off 1100 people in September.
Groupon has also actively moved away from the daily deals modelling, pivoting in Australia to become an “online marketplace” recently.
“Just as our business has evolved from a largely hand-managed daily deal site to a true e-commerce technology platform, our operational mode has to evolve,” Groupon COO Rich Williams said at the time of the layoffs.
Amazon was never really associated with daily deals, and the closure of Local comes just after the demise of Amazon Destinations, which offered users location-based discounts on hotels.
“We’ve learned a great deal from the daily deals business and will look for ways to apply these lessons in the future as we continue to innovate on behalf of our customers and merchants,” an Amazon spokesperson told Tech Crunch.
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Denham Sadler is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne.
