Crap products aren't improved by 50% off

There's nothing Kiwis like better than getting a bargain. We are not as wealthy as Australians and I guess we have more of a cheapskate mentality too.

It seems we are lapping up one-day sale websites and New Zealand now has more than 20 of them!

My guess is that, given the success of sites like Groupon, many operators saw an easy way to make a fast buck and decided to jump on the bandwagon and develop sites themselves, creating a crowded market.

You may recall I was most underwhelmed by their arrival last year.

I still am and despite subscribing to a couple, I have yet to make a purchase as they never seem to have anything you want or need, even at 50 to 70 per cent off full price.

I look in my inbox daily and no I do not want a spa, a shampoo set or my teeth whitened with lasers, or any other ridiculous deals.

If they ever have anything I might fancy, like a meal at a fancy restaurant, the location is usually too far away, even if the websites are supposedly "local".

If these sites are to succeed, they must do better with their bargains — try and sell more than one product a day and try and have something people might want to buy.

Even some of the operators admit there are problems in this market, with one being a lack of decent stock to sell.

My take is that these products are being discounted like this because they're things people do not really want to buy; otherwise they would have been snapped up by now, or they were overpriced to begin with. These deal-of-the-day e-tailers must realise that, even at 50 to 70 per cent off, a useless product will remain just that.