Groupon clone of the day: Yipit

Yipit actually aggregates deals from Groupon clones to offer local and nationwide deals

Today’s Groupon clone is Yipit, which is less of a Groupon clone in itself than an aggregator of Groupon clones.  The site collects and displays deals from over 250 sites, including Groupon, Tippr, and LivingSocial, and makes it possible for users to customize their deals so that they only receive email alerts for items/services that interest them, like clothing, wine, organic food, or black-market babies (no, not really).

Personally, I love Yipit.  In fact, I think out of all of the Groupon clones, Yipit is my favorite because I'm not constrained to one deal and the whole premise of the site is based on customization, so I only get the deals I actually want to see.

The site aggregates deals for 37 cities, and my home town of Sacramento isn’t one of those, so I primarily use Yipit Nation, which aggregates deals from cities across the country that can be redeemed anywhere.  For example, one of the deals—a 52% discount on customizable nutrition bars from You Bar—comes from Groupon, which I subscribe to, but on Groupon I only get deals for Sacramento.  While Groupon is offering the deal for Knoxville, TN, it is included on Yipit Nation, which means I can purchase the deal regardless of whether or not I live in Knoxville.

Categories for customization include apparel, electronics, home, special interest (pets, kids and baby, travel, etc.), price range, sources (Groupon, LivingSocial, Eversave, Woot, etc.), discount range, and time left on the deal.  New users can tailor their interests upon signing up, and existing users can continually modify their preferences (maybe you’re sick of getting teeth-whitening coupons).  

I currently have eight personal selections on Yipit, including wine, coffee and tea, home clearance, and travel, and as of Friday there were 61 deals from 40 sources available in these categories.  

Yipit not only sets itself apart from the rest of the daily deals/social shopping websites by aggregating deals to create a one-stop shopping platform, it also has a really clean, easy-to-navigate user interface.  Because there is no one major deal and a bunch of smaller side deals scattered around here and there, users don't have to rifle through the site to find what they're looking for.  All deals are listed right there on the main page, with customization tabs on the left.

Founded in 2008 by CEO Vinicius Vacanti and Jim Moran, the New York-based company has raised $1.55 million to date, including a $1.3 million round led by SV Angel.  The company launched Yipit Nation in November, right after Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz announced at the Web 2.0 Summit that Yahoo had partnered with 20 daily deals sites to offer local deals to Yahoo users.  Yahoo’s partners include Groupon, Val-Pak, BloomSpot, and more, but Yipit CEO Vinicius Vacanti remarked to CNET that Yahoo’s deals are surprisingly limited.

 “Yipit currently aggregates over 130 daily deal services creating a much more comprehensive experience. If users rely on Yahoo for their daily deals, they will be missing out on 80 percent of the deals,” he said.  On the company’s new Yipit Nation feature, he remarked: "Magazines, vertical Web sites, TV shows, and other big media brands with a large nationwide audience are eager to get into the daily deal space and will be focusing on nationwide deals rather than local deals.”

Groupon has also been getting into nationwide deals as of late, offering deals from major retailers like the Gap and Nordstrom Rack, both of which were so popular that they briefly crashed Groupon’s servers. 

Image source: Yipit.com