The new application is called Group Deals, and it is designed to be like a do-it-yourself Groupon add-on to Facebook Pages and company websites via Facebook Connect. Wildfire users can create and define their own deal-a-day style promotions, which will allow interested brand fans to purchase the deals via their PayPal accounts.
During the setup process, application users can set the value of the deal, define the threshold needed to activate it and link it to their e-commerce system through their own pre-defined discount codes. Brands can also set deal terms and conditions and customize the appearance of the check-out page, as well as use their own images to tweak the application's appearance. The final step is to the publish the deal to a Facebook Page or a company website.
Given that Group Deals are heavily tied to the Facebook platform, users who sign up for deals can publish the activity to their newsfeed or invite their Facebook friends to join them to unlock the promotion in the question.
Wildfire is using the PayPal API, which means PayPal will help them to track and manage the entire deal buying process, and automatically notify buyers if and when the deal is activated.
As the group buying trend continues to grow, brands and marketers are sure to be curious about how they can apply the deeply discounted deal model to their own products and services. Wildfire's Group Deals option lets them do just that within Facebook's network of nearly 500 million members and on their own sites.
Obviously, there's huge potential here. We expect creative brand campaigns tied to group discounts, and even think there's enough here to help brands use social media to significantly impact sales.
