Tickles
People in Norfolk have saved £1m in the last year thanks to group buying, daily deals website Tickles.
Launched in East Anglia last year, the site now features deals in Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge and London.
Half price – or better – mechanical checks for cars, health treatments, haircuts, meals and boiler services are just some of the deals on offer.
Archant, the publishers of the EDP, acquired a joint stake in the business in January.
The service is free to users, or 'Ticklers', who sign up to receive local offers. If they like the offer, they purchase a voucher online which they can redeem with the merchant, but only if a minimum number of people required have signed up for the offer, which is called reaching a 'happy point'.
By agreeing to sell a minimum number of vouchers, businesses are able to offer the heavy discounts on their goods not normally available to individual customers.
It works for the participating businesses because they have a guaranteed number of customers, receive promotion and if the happy point is not reached the deal costs them nothing.
Tickles provides consumers with different money–saving offers in a variety of different methods, including an iPhone application and a daily email.
Founder Marcus Pearcey has already seen his hopes of rolling the concept out across the region successful and hopes for further expansion.
The business was formed from a former mobile phone voucher website, Tickred.
