Since I started visiting Bulgaria in 1999 one piece of feedback I always get from tourists is “WOW! Bulgaria is SO cheap”!

I personally prefer the term “good value” but calling a spade, a spade, Bulgaria is cheap compared to most other European countries on almost every level.

However, seasoned travellers to Bulgaria, those owning holiday properties here or even those expats that have chosen the Balkans as their home have often complained about different prices being offered to locals (Bulgarians) whilst inflated prices – still usually “good value” – are shown to foreign visitors in hotels, restaurants and other tourist services across the country. This was certainly widespread as little as two or three years ago but changes in the Bulgarian legislation have made this a criminal offense so it has largely vanished.

However, a new phenomenon is sweeping the world: Social Buying Networks. And theses have recently arrived in Bulgaria and are available, if you know where to look, for everyone to save a huge amount of money when on holiday here, or anywhere else for that matter.

What is a Social Buying Network?

Essentially, these “networks” are websites that have identified a gap in the market (or jumped on a bandwagon) with one of most prominent worldwide sites being Grupon based in the United States. The concept is simple:
1.    Approach a popular service or business (restaurant, hotel, anything really!)
2.    Ask them for a limited discount offer off their product or service – Usually a minimum of 50%
3.    Agree a small commission
4.    The Social Buying Network then puts this “deal” out to its users as a “one-off-daily-deal” – Usually to thousands of active users and in the case of Grupon, many millions
5.    The Users then purchases the voucher online and uses it to get the fantastic and exclusive deal on offer subject to any terms and conditions put in place by that business

So who benefits from the Social Buying Networks?

Well, everyone really.

The business offering the deal begins by getting “free” (I prefer the term pay-as-you go) marketing. Most sites like these have full contact details, maps and a description of the service on offer as the “Deal of the Day” and it is usually sent to thousands, if not millions of active email accounts as well. Traditionally, companies pay a great deal of money for advertising on high-traffic websites as well as paying for access to targeted email lists. The deal is also usually posted on other social network sites like Face Book and Twitter so it is very easy, and at this point, free of charge for the business offering the deal to promote themselves to thousands and thousands of people who are interested in what they offer. and often in several countries at a time.

The users of these websites are also benefiting. There is no “trick” with most of the Social Buying Networks we have found. The reputable ones are reputable because they do their research on the market and also on the businesses they approach for these deals. The owners of these sites know it is all about credibility so discounts need to be 100% genuine and usually against published rates offered by the “Deal of the Day” business from their own website. This way, users get a “warm, fuzzy feeling” that they are indeed getting an exclusive offer which is only limited for a short period from the Social Buying Website. This also builds loyalty to that particular social buying site.

In many cases, users see deals which are so cheap (I won’t use the ”good value” phrase here as I mean CHEAP!) they find it hard not to take the deal. For example, Pizza Hut offered a deal through Golden Deals (one of the top three SBN’s in Bulgaria) and was offering a Family Pizza for 1 Leva instead of around 15 Leva. Yes… 1 Leva. Pizza Hut being my “weapon of choice” (ahhhhh… Meat Lovers Pan Pizza is for winners!) if looking for this type of fast food, I bought three!! I would have been stupid not too and it is not surprising that on the day this deal was offered, Golden Deals sold well over 2,000 of these offers.

Other users (like my girlfriend) search for deals on services or products that she regularly uses anyway. For example last week, she managed to buy her fortnightly nail manicure appointment (usually costing around 35 Leva) from a new salon in the centre of Sofia for just under 15 Leva. She said she was extremely pleased with the results and said she would definitely use the new salon again.

So again the business offering the deal benefits from gaining new clients who in many cases turn into the most kind of important clients… loyal ones.

And of course the Social Buying Website benefits as they take their commission.

“So what?!” you ask

OK, so if you are reading this in London or Berlin, you may feel that a 14 Leva saving off a pizza or a 60% discount of your nail job is not worth a trip to Bulgaria and you may well be right!

But if you are planning on a trip to Bulgaria and are open to suggestions as to location, hotel and other services you may be interested in, why not take a look at some of these sites before you book anything. You may save yourself the equivalent of your air fare to Varna or Bourgas on the hotel bill alone.

And if you don’t use these sites in your own country of origin, take a look; you may get a Pizza Hut deal like mine for $1/£1/1 Groat or whatever your national currency is.

And if you own a business that could benefit from an increased client base, whatever it is, would you consider trying selling your services through a Social Buying Network like Golden Deals? If not, why not? Do you advertise? How much Return on Investment (RoI) do you get from a campaign in a national newspaper? How many “impressions” (website visitors who actually see you ad) do you get from banner advertising on a popular local website? And what do these cost you?

If your business is offering a good service, how valuable is it to you that you can actually get customers to come and sample your products, services or food, albeit at a discount, in the hope that your new customers will want to come back again?

Let’s take a made up example: In Bulgaria, there are probably around 600 (yes, only 600) registered golfers. There are now five or six excellent golf courses in the country that mainly target foreigners for their business.

Question: Is a new golf club going to “loose” anything by offering an hour with a PGA Pro teacher for 30 Leva an hour instead of 60 Leva?
Answer: Who only takes one golf lesson?

So the worst case scenario for the golf club [in Bulgaria] is they suddenly get an increase in interest in the sport and have a load of new-wannabe-Tiger-Woods type people knocking on their door. How much is that worth compared to what that golf club needs to spend on advertising to attract those very same people from their own country?

Are you sold yet?

Providing you don’t have the bank balance of Bill Gates, you probably find these sites quite interesting now even if you didn’t before!

So you want to find deals like this in Bulgaria? This is where it gets tricky… but far from impossible.

Whilst researching this piece, I found various (about 16 in total) sites like these offering everything from 60% off a week’s all-inclusive holiday on the Black Sea Coast to bungee jumps at 10 Leva (€5) each instead of 30 Leva. But every single one was only in Bulgarian. This does not mean these sites discriminate against foreigners but it does mean they are entirely focused on their home countries target audience which let’s face it, is generally what the businesses offering the deals want.

So how do I get these deals…? I don’t read Bulgarian?!?

Those of you who are “tech savvy” probably already use web browsers such as Google Chrome or Firefox which have “plugins” available to auto-translate a web page as it loads. This is what I use.  Although not a perfect translation, it will certainly give most people 95% of the gist of the offer in question. There are no restrictions against who buys these deals. You don’t have to be the resident of a particular country (it is actually against Bulgarian and European Law) so change your browser or get the plugin and start enjoying!

For those techno-phoebe’s out there, find the buying site in questions and just copy and paste the whole webpage into Google Translate for almost the same effect as above. Although it does make it a little more complicated when you come to the checkout and paying for the item if not using a browser translation.

Anything to be wary of?

To be honest, not really. Apart from the fact that the Social Buying Sites take no responsibility for the services or products delivered by their partners offering the deals it is fairly black and white. But even then, you statutory rights are not effected by buying through a Social Buying Network so if you feel there is a problem with what you get in return for the deal you bought, take it up with the business in question as you would any other normal transaction.

It is worth noting also, although it makes little difference to the eventual outcome, that the majority of the sites here in Bulgaria (and the rest of the world for that matter) often “sex up” the numbers of deals actually bought from their sites. This means that you cannot always guarantee that the “267 Relaxation Weekends at Hotel XXX in Bansko” that appear to have been sold actually have. This is a tried and tested marketing ploy that extends to almost every industry from real-estate to mobile phones so should not surprise too many of you.

Having said that, we found one site that categorically states that the published “deals sold” are 100% accurate. As many Bulgarians prefer to pay online transactions offline most of these Social Buying Sites in this country allow users to pay within a set number of days through an ATM or over the counter at a bank. Golden Deals (the “accurate” site in question) actually reduces the number of on-screen-deals sold if people do not pay within the stipulated time period so it is quite common to see on this particular site the deal numbers going up as well as down depending on when their transactions complete, if they complete at all.

Ultimately, does it really make a difference if the Social Buying Site in question starts proceedings of offering a deal by telling it’s users its sold five or six already?

Probably not unless you have the most upright of morals and have never seen advertising of any kind before. I.e. if you live on the moon!

Win-Win then?

It certainly looks that way!

In fact, I would even go so far to say that it is so “win-win”, between Face Book fan pages and Social Buying Sites why would a company pay to advertise in any other medium? Especially if just launching their venture. As for the users, they get to find great new businesses offering what should be considered (by everyone) as VERY special “introductory prices” in the hope of creating loyalty which, from feedback we have had, seems to work.

Go find the deals people!

The guys and girls at Summer Guide to Bulgaria and the Ski & Snowboard Guide to Bulgaria will be keeping their eyes peeled for any really interesting deals and translating them as they come along, so come back over the coming weeks to see what we find!