SlickDeals.net
SlickDeals.net is a free online deal website that relies on its community for user-shared information on deals. It is notable for being the most popular deal site as of April 2011. It was created in 1999 and is based in Las Vegas, NV. Since November 10, 1999, SlickDeals has gained over 940,000 registered users and over 700,000 deals. All deals and forum posts are user-generated, and none of the front-page deals are paid advertisements from their respective companies. SlickDeals has all user-generated content and does not focus on any one type of bargain. Its features include a forum, mobile content, coupon codes, and a blog. Each deal has comments left by other people discussing its validity and its actual value, as well as the possibility that it may have already expired or the item may have sold out.
Business
Some companies share a portion of their revenue with Slickdeals.net when users click through a deal link and makes a purchase. Popular third party programs that SlickDeals.net is a member of include Commission Junction, Share-a-Sale, and Pepperjam. SlickDeals.net also makes revenue through third party banner advertisements.
Site design
The SlickDeals Frontpage has a list format of the highlighted deals and includes a brief description of what it is and where it can be purchased. Popular Hot Topics, Up and Coming Topics, and Featured Coupons are on the right hand side of the Frontpage. The Frontpage easily shows the user where they can log in, create an account, access forums, and search for more deals and bargains that aren't immediately listed on the home page.
It can be overwhelming to first-time users because of how much content there is when he or she first reaches the website. However, the best deals are hand-picked by SlickDeals employees and placed on the front page of the website.
Types of deals
SlickDeals.net offers the SlickDeal Commitment where the website offers five core promises to its users.
- The deals are rated by the users.
- The deals and prices are researched.
- The deals are hand-picked and only the best will be posted.
- Only deals by trustworthy merchants are posted.
- Posted deals are never paid advertisements.
There are several different types of deals that can be found on SlickDeals. These include Frontpage Slickdeals, Hot Topics, Hot Deals, Local Deals, Freebies, Coupons, Contests & Sweepstakes, and Drugstore B&M Deals.
- Frontpage Slickdeals are deals placed in order from most recent to oldest. It can be filtered in grid, list, or simple form, and one can hide expired deals or expand all the deals to see their information. Deals can be clicked on to access more information.
- Hot Topics are the most popular threads on the SlickDeals forum by rating.
- Hot Deals are the most popular deals that can be retrieved online.
- Local Deals
- Season Deals (Black Friday sales)
- Freebies
- Coupons are for stores both online and offline.
- Contests & Sweepstakes
- Drugstore B&M Deals are coupons and other deals for drugstores that can be retrieved in-store.
- Amazon.com fillers help users reach the $25 free shipping minimum.
- Price compare
- Deal alerts
Online community
SlickDeals does not use automated scripts to post its deals, and it relies on user activity and user-generated content, but a user doesn't have to be a member of the community to find the deals. They do not give any compensation for the deals posted, but users join in order to be part of helping people find the most accurate bargains online. Without an account, visitors to SlickDeals can still access all of the deals on SlickDeals, but they cannot leave feedback on deals or respond to threads on the forum. Registration is free and simple, involving just the username, password, email address, and a simple Captcha. Registration gives access to deal alerts, thread subscriptions, giveaways, wishlists/favorites, and other specials. One can also subscribe to a SlickDeals newsletter that will give you updates on the latest activity on the website.
SlickDeals is constantly being updated by other users, so there are always fresh deals and bargains to look out for. The ACTIVE community quickly catches errors or expirations of posted deals, keeping it up-to-date. Users can gain reputation based on a voting system, giving their comments or posted bargains a certain reliability meter in the amount of reputation they have and encouraging users to join and make an account in order to build their reputation or post count. The forums also have levels that you can gain from the amount of posts you make and the amount of reputation you gain. Users can rate to give feedback beyond just comments, which boosts posts to the front page of SlickDeals. Their Hot Deals forum gets thousands of comments on the latest and best bargains found online and offline, and because of this, a deal you find will most likely have feedback on the forum on whether it’s a good deal or not.
To further build community life, SlickDeals has a popular Lounge forum where users can discuss nearly any topic, resulting in a variety of discussions.
To maintain the policies on the site, warning points are issued to users when they break the rules. The number of points awarded is dependent on the seriousness of the infraction. When users reaches ten points, they are banned from the forum for seven days. The ban can then become permanent for very serious or multiple infractions.
Applications
Mobile site
SlickDeals.net has a mobile web site which can be found at m.slickdeals.net. The mobile site has roughly the same features as the regular site but is easier to navigate due to the absence of banners and misleading links. There are four tabs on the mobile site - Home, Hot Deals, Hot Topics, and Forums - as opposed to seven main tabs each with multiple sub tabs on the regular site.
Private messages can be read and responded to via the mobile site. Users of the mobile site can also enable the “Deal Alert” feature which sends new deals to their phones via private message or email.
Facebook application
SlickDeals.net has a Facebook application that grants users access to three main features:
- Latest Frontpage Deals
- Coupons
- Deal Alerts
For each deal listed in Latest Frontpage Deals, users can use the Facebook share function to share the deal on their friends’ Facebook walls.
RSS feed
SlickDeals.net offers two RSS feeds: RSS 0.91 and RSS 2.0. RSS 0.91 provides a link with the title of the thread while RSS 2.0 provides the title, author, date, and the contents of the first post on the thread.
The RSS feeds can be added as a Yahoo! Widget and can be found in the form of smart phone apps.
Smart phone apps
A number of smart phone apps are available for SlickDeals.net. For example, on Android there is Slick Deals RSS Feed by Webcipe, My SlickDeals - Free by Pandroid, and SlickDeals Reader Free by Aheu Dev and on iPhone there is SlickDeals.net viewer by Hotelnames.net. As of 12/25/2011 Slickdeals has beta signup for its upcoming in-house mobile app.