After a year which featured lingering economic uncertainty, and underperformance from many popular IPOs, 2012 should see some exciting activity from the more than 200 companies hoping to go public. Here are 24/7 Wall St.'s picks for the top IPOs to watch.
Frugal foodies, rejoice! A growing list of websites is making it easier to indulge in culinary adventures that won't take a big bite out of your wallet. Here are five sites designed to help you find foodie-worthy restaurants that are affordable, too.
There's a new daily deals player, and it's a company that's near and dear to your virtual pocketbook. And if you think the online coupons sector is too saturated for a fresh entry to make a dent, you're ignoring a few important things about PayPal.
Forget the material things %u2014 reindeer sweaters, clunky toys, stocking stuffers that end up as, well, stuff. How about a skydiving lesson, a spa pampering or a night at a cozy bed and breakfast This holiday season, a lasting memory is worth a thousand knickknacks.
Groupon's IPO was a rousing success, but its business model still may be an endangered species. Facebook, restaurant reviews website Yelp, and dining reservations leader OpenTable have all bowed out of selling prepaid vouchers for area merchants at steep discounts in recent weeks. Here's why:
Groupon's IPO is finally on track. The daily-deals leader will settle for a smaller offering than it had envisioned, but it should go public by the end of next week. But there are more ways than the IPO to bet on the Groupon flash sale model: Consider these dot-com smarties that are all over the niche.
Do you really need Groupon or LivingSocial? If you answered "yes," you're among a shrinking minority. Really, Groupons are meant to entice us to try things we otherwise wouldn't. Couponing, though, is how smart shoppers cut costs on what they already buy, and these five sites can save you a bundle.
If the line at your local Whole Foods Market is a little longer than usual over the next few days, don't blame it on a surge in popularity of soymilk or organic cherries. Instead, you can thank LivingSocial's national deal which offered $20 worth of groceries for just $10.
Daily deals services are multiplying even faster than savings-hungry consumers can track them. But this business model is deeply flawed: A significant fraction of those who purchase a deal never even redeem their coupons, meaning these so-called "promotions" are failures, for shoppers and retailers both. And merchants can suffer when deals are redeemed.
Tens of thousands of group deals are purchased every day from sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, but between 18% and 22% aren't redeemed. All that spent-yet-unspent money is an opportunity for a secondary market, and a handful of websites are filling the gap, providing deal-holders a quick way to cash-out on offers they won't use.
Wall Street can be fickle, leaving investors scratching their heads in bewilderment. Some of last week's biggest surprises, blunders, and flat-out bone-headed moves included Morgan Stanley's downgrading of Google, another step toward a LivingSocial IPO, and irrational exuberance with respect to Wendy's stock.
A penny saved, they say, is a penny earned -- which explains the popularity of group-buying websites. But they also say that time is money, which is why you may be feeling like the daily slog through all those discount deals is becoming more trouble than it's worth. But there are ways to keep the bargains and take back your inbox.
Facebook dipped a big toe into the group-buying waters on Tuesday, launching a test of its Deals on Facebook service. But though it's coming late to the game, analysts and merchants say they won't be surprised if the social networking titan soon poses a viable threat to market leaders Groupon and LivingSocial.
Everyone loves to save money, and group-buying websites like Groupon and LivingSocial make it seem so easy. But they also make it easy -- and very tempting -- to buy more than you need, things that you don't, and coupons you'll never redeem. But you can tame your group-buying habit.
