How Group Buying Works for the Consumer

You sign up at LocalTradeDeals by listing your email address and the city in which you live.  Then, LocalTradeDeals offers daily deals on a variety of services from many different retailers in your area.  If enough people sign up for a particular offer, then the whole group gets the daily deal. 

If there are not enough people to sign up, then no one gets the deal.  LocalTradeDeals then collects payment from the consumer (for the deal), takes their fee from the funds, and then passes on the rest of the money to the business.

You then present the coupon to the business for redemption.

There is, as already mentioned, a tipping point that must be reached with every deal.  If a certain number of people do not sign up, the deal is not available for anyone.  This is the genius part of the program and where the social aspect kicks in and makes the Group Buying experience work.  The system relies on the fact that those who want a particular deal to go through, will send it to friends so that they can sign up, and then everyone reaps the reward.