Today, Cudo announced the launch of a draft Code of Conduct for for the Group Buying industry and a framework to complete the code in partnership with Spreets and a number of industry bodies, including ADMA, AIMIA, Telsyte and others.
This is no PR stunt, this is an important step that was born out of necessity. The growth of the Group Buying industry in Australia has lead to more than twenty companies starting daily deals websites; this growth brings real risk to merchants, to consumers and to the category as a whole. Once agreed though, the Code will bring a set of principles that will go a long way to protecting Merchants and consumers from that risk.
Cudo and Spreets as industry leaders at least recognise the importance of putting merchants and members first, ensuring the group buying experience continues to be strategically sound for merchants, and enjoyable and worthwhile for members. As the category grows, our introduction of this voluntary Code of conduct provides a framework from which to implement some of the fundamentals of good group buying and promote best practice.
We have invited our Group Buying competitors to get involved in the development of the code and sign up to the finished document, I sincerely hope they do – many existing Group Buying businesses will have to mend their ways if they are to sign up of course, let’s hope they do that too!
The draft Code of Conduct is as follows:
Our commitment to members is to:
1. Always offer you great deals – genuine discounts on quality products and services from first class merchants
2. Never engage in misleading advertising, such as advertising specific discounts or products that don’t actually exist (known as ‘Bait and Switch’)
3. Make our deal descriptions and terms & conditions clear using plain English so you know what to expect in return for your voucher. Where exclusions exist, they will be equally clear using plain English and will never be intentionally misleading
4. Make our website terms and conditions clear and in plain English so you know what to expect from your experience with our sites
5. Respect your privacy at all times and abide by the Privacy Policy you agreed to when you joined the site
6. Respect your email account at all times, taking measures to protect it from hacking or other fraudulent use
7. Work with our merchants to make sure you can easily redeem your voucher and that you are treated as good as or even better than a typical full paying customer
8. Provide responsive and helpful customer support and service – seeking to fully understand and resolve your issues
9. If you’re not fully satisfied with your experience, we’ll seek to understand why, address the issues and, if your issue cannot be resolved, provide you with a full refund or credit
10. Do what we say we’re going to do, every time
Our commitment to merchants is to:
1. Work with you and your team to make your group buying promotion as successful as possible
• Help you package and price the right deal for your business
• Help you prepare for the increase in customers
• Help you manage the increase in demand including capping your offer as necessary
• Help you maximise your up-sell opportunity to enhance the experience of new customers at your business
• Help you get customers coming back
2. Provide you with clear payment terms
3. Provide fast, effective, personal customer service through a dedicated account management model
4. Do what we say we’re going to do, every time
57 Signals 