Savings.com thrives in a competitive market

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Savings.com helps people find the best deals on everything they want.

Frustrated with the current state of online shopping and discount retailers, co-founder and CEO, Loren Bendele, was determined to design a more comprehensive Internet destination where users could find and compare deals and connect with a like-minded community, all in one easy to use format. The team at Savings.com is equally as passionate about helping people save money. They scour the web 24/7 and aggregate the best offers in every category from baby gear and big screen TVs, to daily deal offers and grocery coupons.

MO: How is Savings.com different than the other discount sites out there?

Loren: There’s a lot out there in the wide world of online deals and discounts. At Savings.com, we promise to spare you the clutter. Savings.com gives you the best deals on everything you want. Tell us what stores and categories you like, where you live, and Savings.com will deliver the best deals for you, handpicked by expert DealPros.

In addition to providing personalized recommendations, Savings.com has one of the most in-depth databases of coupons. Shoppers can access thousands of exclusive offers from the biggest retailer names along with 400,000+ deals aggregated from online and national retailers, local businesses, daily deal sites and grocery brands. More than 5 million shoppers turn to Savings.com each month as the trusted resource to find the best deals and to interact with the site’s popular personal finance blog and vital community of online coupon experts, the DealPros.

MO: Why do you think that you’ve experienced such impressive growth in short amount of time and in a very competitive market?

Loren:  First and foremost we’ve got a great team and a great culture. We’ve managed to attract, inspire and retain the best team I’ve ever worked with.

I think our tech capability is much stronger than competitors so we’re able to efficiently market and grow traffic more profitably than others.

We also have great merchant relationships. We’ve focused on learning our merchant’s businesses and this has helped us develop the relationships required to get the most exclusive deal content.

We’ve also developed strong relationships with the blogging community and this has helped elevate our social profile. Our DealPro strategy has been very successful within the media and has garnished a lot of media attention for our DealPros and for savings.com

Finally we have a relentless focus on what is genuinely the best deal for consumers. We are able to personalize all our deal content for each user to only show them the most popular deals on the things they want. We solve the “deal overload” problem that most are experiencing.

MO: Can you talk about getting acquired by a great company with a great shared vision? How do you see this merger help contribute to the growth, strategy and direction of Savings.com?

Loren: Cox is a great family run business. They have a strong culture and deep respect for their employees and their customers and they operate with tremendous integrity. This was key to us. We’ve spent many years building our culture and brand and we want to protect that above all else. They are also private and they do not have to answer to Wall Street. This enables them to take a long-term perspective on investments, which was also important to us.

Beyond those fundamentals, there are also many strategic synergies. They are the strongest player in print distribution of deals and local deal content. We are strong in online deals and digital distribution. Together, we have a comprehensive solution for getting all the best deals and distributing through multiple media.

MO: What are your plans for leveraging synergies between the two companies?

Loren: The two business were strong by themselves, so we want to keep them separate so we don’t mess anything up. We want to keep growing both businesses.

That being said, there are definite synergies. We can take our national deal content for major merchants and distribute them via print with our “pay for performance” solution. This opens up new solutions for our marketers. We can also take all of Valpak’s local content and distribute through our digital channels (online, mobile, social and through 3rd party syndication).

There are more synergies that facilitate new innovations that we’ll be unveiling soon.

MO: What’s the best advice that you’ve ever been given?

Loren:  It is tough to think of just one thing. There have been so many. But first would probably be when my mother sat down next to me after I did something stupid as a teenager, and gave me a newspaper clipping about “your name” and protecting it. I still remember how I felt after she read it to me, and I’d say that was the best advice – living your life so you’re proud of your name. Benjamin Franklin had a good quote on this as well: “Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended.”

MO: How does your team find the best deals available for your customer base?

Loren: Our dedicated team of deal hunters scours the web to find top offers in every category from designer clothes and baby gear to big screen TVs and gourmet food. Our community of DealPros and super savers rates every deal we‘ve got to make sure you find the best stuff first, so there‘s no need to spend all that time sifting through expired coupons and codes that don‘t work. Savings.com is a safe haven of high quality, reliable deals.

Our mission is to offer consumers the straightest, simplest road to the best deals online. We work hand in hand with top retailers and brands to make sure we‘re providing the very best offers available. That means our savings come straight from the source — many deals are exclusives that you won‘t find anywhere else. Our site is updated with the latest and greatest at every moment, and we never stop looking to make sure we‘ve got the next best deal.