My husband and I signed up our small local mom-and-pop restaurant. The persistent sales person told us that we would gain more traffic and they would raise awareness for our restaurant through their marketing efforts. First they posted a high ticket gift certificates which is a death sentence for our single $ business. After a follow-up conversation with the salesmen he reduced the gift certificate purchase amount to $5 and $10. In a very short time a good number of certificates have been purchased of both the high and low denominations. But here's the problem. There wasn't one new customer, it was all existing customers that came with the certificate - purchasing $20 $30, $50 worth of food for half the price. One of our existing customers bought three coupons and plans to come back and use each one to save half off her order. I am sure our customers think we are getting a portion of the original investment they made but we get none of it!
We had our name pulled down from the site immediately and we are no longer honoring any certificates that are presented. No loss for the customer, restaurant.com will allow them to switch it for something else. My husband and I run specials and promos all the time but this type of promo is detrimental to our bottom line. We did not see any benefit only loss.