Yelp: Going Mobile
Street Smart Moves: The best or biggest deal, assertion, investment or other strategy this week.
Who: Yelp
Why: For taking on Groupon in the mobile space.
The next phase of growth for local deals will be mobile. Groupon knows this, and so does Yelp, which today is rolling out Yelp Deals to its iPhone and Android apps. An update to its mobile apps that is getting pushed out today will add a new deals icon to the app. —Techcrunch
No, we’re not talking about food trucks (though we do like them). Yelp is wisely leveraging one of its major strengths–its mobile popularity–to get up in Groupon’s grill. Yelp users regularly use its mobile features to decide where to eat, drink and shop when they’re out and about. (Several months ago, the company said that 35% of Yelp.com searches took places came from a mobile app.) Now they get instant info on nearby Yelp Deals as well, which should help boost sales and give the company more leverage with its local vendors. They’ll need it to fill up their inventory: Yelp launched the mobile deals in a dozen cities, trouncing Groupon’s handful–but they offer a couple of deals a week rather than one every day. Yelp already has Yelp Special Offers (sales and non-flash deals) and Check-In Offers; this rounds out the trifecta.