Yahoo has made its move in the burgeoning local deals space, announcing “Local Offers,” a service that will pull together deep discounts from more than a dozen partners including Groupon, LivingSocial and Coupons.com.
In other words, rather than go head-to-head with these companies -- and build out the robust infrastructure required to do so -- it appears Yahoo has gone the aggregation route instead. And that makes some sense for the company; if there’s one thing Yahoo has going for it, it’s the scale needed to make the local discount model work.
By aggregating deals instead of building its own product, Yahoo’s able to monetize its audience without incurring major new costs. That said, the site isn't live yet and Yahoo was unable to provide us with screenshots, so we're not exactly sure what the service will look like or how Yahoo plans to drive traffic to it.
In a statement released this morning, Yahoo’s VP Local Matt Idema said, “With more than 180 million unique visitors to Yahoo’s sites in the U.S., we are uniquely positioned to deliver our local-offer partners the massive scale and targeting needed to reach engaged audiences, grow their businesses, and drive foot traffic to local merchants.”