Th3 Core

Incase you did not know:

eConversions, which operates VoucerCodes.co.uk in the UK and Gutschein-Codes.de in Germany, has been purchased by WhaleShark Media.

US-based WhaleShark operates a portfolio of online coupon and deal sites and has now made six acquisitions since its 2009 foundation with its most recent deal for RetailMeNot.com in November 2010.

According to a statement VoucherCodes.co.uk has four million visitors to the site each month.

Cotter Cunningham, chief executive officer of WhaleShark Media, says: 'eConversions provides extraordinary value to both its merchant partners and its consumers.'

Established in 2004 by Duncan and Max Jennings, VoucherCodes.co.uk was launched in 2008 to provide deals for restaurants and online stores.

Duncan Jennings adds: 'The expertise and resources of the WhaleShark team will allow eConversions to provide our consumers with even better deals and position us perfectly for future growth and expansion.

Under the terms of the deal, which is for an undisclosed amount, the two websites are to remain independent brands and continue to operate from offices in London.

Other websites operated by WhaleShark Media includes: Deals.com, Deals2Buy.com, CheapStingyBargains.com, CouponSeven.com and CouponShare.com. The Texas-based business is funded by venture capital firms Austin Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners and Google Ventures.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My responce to the press as we are a player in this space:

The recent acquisition of VoucherCodes.co.uk by WhaleSharkMedia could be an astute move by the US venture capital group to build a powerful rival to Groupon in Europe, according to Doug Scott, founder of DiscountVouchers.co.uk

Doug commented: "Voucher sites have their main value in the email subscriber database and clearly, with four million subscribers, VoucherCodes.co.uk is a valuable asset for anyone wanting to gain a foothold in the UK market. If WhaleSharkMedia can buy up a number of smaller voucher sites across Europe it will be able to build a subscriber base to rival Groupon at an economical price.

"Groupon is valued at $15 billion and has 115 million email subscribes, hence valuing each subscriber at around $130.  VoucherCodes.co.uk with its four million subscribers was bought for $40 million, which would suggest a value of  $10 per subscriber.  Added to this, VoucherCodes.co.uk founder, Duncan Jennings, at just 31, is one of the brightest stars in the online world. He has both the business acumen and the technical savvy to make an ideal European CEO.  If, as I suspect, the deal was based mainly on shares, then you have a partner with an investment in the future of the parent company, which maintains focus and loyalty for the future.


"WhaleSharkMedia has been on a spending spree in the States and now in Europe with VoucherCodes.co.uk and Germany's Gutschein-Codes.de, backed in part by cash from Google Ventures. Once they have mopped up a few more players and built the database up they just need to integrate the back office and they will have access to the spending habits of half the continent at their fingertips, which is a nice position to be in.

"The main lesson that sites like ourselves and others can learn from this is that it's all about the subscriber base. Paid search is fine for getting started but it eats up the profits. Organic search is fickle and can disappear overnight if you are not careful. Millions of subscribers who love you because you save them money are more likely to stick around and be of value to a venture capital firm." Scott concluded.

About DiscountVouchers.co.uk

DiscountVouchers.co.uk features the latest money saving offers from a growing range of retailers, all updated in real time.  Designed to help consumers save money with both leading high street brands and specialist retailers, DiscountVouchers.co.uk offers one of the widest choices of discounts available.

Part of ASAP Ventures Ltd, the company behind the award winning Carrentals.co.uk price comparison site, DiscountVouchers.co.uk is committed to offering a growing range of the best savings available online.

For more information visit http://www.discountvouchers.co.uk

Increasing the complete database of users by acquiring additional voucher code sites certainly seems like an economical way of doing things but my question would be the level of duplication. Wouldn't the sort of folks that sign up to say myvouchercodes newsletters be exactly the same folks who also sign up to vouchercodes newsletters et al? So the incremental value of adding more and more voucher code user bases into the central database would potential decrease after each acquisition.

what was the reason vouchercodes was purchased and not your discountvouchers Doug, is it a bigger player than your site or just more well known ?

People being on several db's makes no difference aslong as the business's are kept seperate, which is what Whale have done in the US. Expedia and Lastminute have seperate lists that have a huge overlap, but their products are similar.

Fair point Doug. Although in terms of keeping the mailing lists as separate entities, that's fine, but I would have thought that there would have had to have been some more of a differentation between the separate entities than there currently is otherwise there will just be a load of replication between e.g. emailed vouchers to users even if its from several separate entities.

Who wants to see the same old deals but branded differently? Or are there that many great deals out there that there will be something completely different offered by each brand? As I see it the many different voucher code sites seem to peddle the same old guff.

OK...just to help the stupid Americans

A "voucher" is what Yanks call a "coupon?"  Or am I mistaken?

Exactly right  Brits tend to use the term vouchers more than coupons - they amount to the same thing though.

My guess it's a bit of both Mick.

I don't work on discountvouchers.co.uk any more but knocked up the first version as a prototype back in 2008.
To begin with DV took inspiration from the other voucher sites, but within 12 months the top voucher sites were soon copying us.

Vouchercodes.co.uk had a 4 year head start over discountvouchers.co.uk.
Believe vouchercodes.co.uk is the 2nd biggest player in the UK, and discountvouchers.co.uk became the 3rd biggest player in the UK 18 months after launch.
vouchercodes.co.uk still have a nicer site and probably a much bigger team. But am sure that will change with the new star people Doug has hired

Have come across econsultancy.com a few times now. Some not bad info on there.

Don't agree with the gist of the author's article though: that Mason is naive about email marketing. He actually says in his internal email, "...our job forever after will be to continually convert these subscribers into customers and to make sure our customers keep buying from us."

I don't think you can get much clearer than that.

Ed