The Butchers on Yonge Street: Group-Buying Blowback

During Yipit’s presentation on Group Buying Data at ILMEast this morning James Moran mentioned that a deal from DealFind for The Butchers on Yonge Street in Toronto could have been one of the most successful daily deal offers yet.  The Canadian company offered 69% off meat orders and sold over 11,000 orders which generated over $600,000 in revenue.  That sounded pretty good to me until I stumbled across this thread of angry customers on RedFlagDeals (YPG’s deal site).

Some excerpts:

I don’t care what makes sense to you. What makes sense is that are deceiving and misleading people. I was re-assured that the problem was resolved by dealfind so that is why I went in again. Don’t blame me for exercising my consumer rights. I have requested and received a full refund from Dealfind. *There will be articles in the media about this thanks to me. These coupon sites are doing a disservice to people and praying on our desires to get good deals during these economic times.

The Butchers are doing something dodgy and shady here. We might not have proof, but by offering so many deals on so many sites and by being deceptive on their prices and what people can use the coupon for translates to disgusting. *They will hopefully learn their lesson. It might end up costing people their jobs though and that is sad.

FYI you better check your emailed order cos they substituted strip loin for my ordered ribeye and DIDNT EVEN TELL ME!!!! plus ZERO marbling, which shouldn’t really be graded AA or higher which is what they are purportedly selling.

and this gem:

yeah wow i just got off the phone with them. i talked to a very angry man. i had some concerns about my order (which took 2 weeks from the order date to come through, and then they forgot to give the delivery instructions to the driver so my order almost wasn’t delivered) and the man didn’t want to listen to anything i said, and spoke very angrily to me, not listening to anything i had to say and interrupting me when i tried to explain. he told me that i should be happy and and appreciative of such a good deal and blamed selling so many coupons for their problems.

i told him he seemed very angry and frustrated and before I could get another word in, he started lecturing me about what he THOUGHT i was complaining about (which was totally incorrect – perhaps if he had listened he wouldn’tve been so angry!) and I tried to explain again, at which point he told me the lady answering the emails was in a coma and had cancer, yet was still answering the emails (?!?!)

I told him I did not like how I was being treated and could I get a refund? He said yes and then as I was asking how, he hung up on me! So I called back again, he picked up laughing and I asked him how to get a refund and he said “take it up with the coupon people” and told me he would not serve a customer like me.

all i can say is wow. i thought the purpose of those deals was to get new customers. cuz i will never ever go back there.

and that was just from one page on a thread of eight pages.  I have no idea if these comments are valid, but unfortunately that’s besides the point – they are public.  As I have mentioned before, I think there is a big opportunity for companies to help merchants navigate and manage their daily deal programs.  The Butchers on Young may be an awesome butcher, but as a result of this promotion, some people don’t seem to agree with that assessment.