Lady LUX

Now with the touch of a button, you can easily access bargains on things to do, see, eat and buy. Daily deals site Groupon has just unveiled Groupon Now, a new location-based, mobile deal offering service that provides instantly redeemable offers, reported The Independent.

With this app, you can access a variety of deals throughout the day instead of one offer delivered to your email account, said Stylesight. The new application can be obtained for both iPhone and Android devices, as well as online.

The service works much like Foursquare or Facebook Places, presenting bargains and discounts through accessing your smartphone’s GPS to peddle coupons in real-time. You enter your ZIP (the deals depend on your vicinity) and select the type of deal you are interested in, from a cheap burger to a 50-percent off dance lesson. Click to purchase, you receive a barcode, and then you take the coded receipt to the vendor and claim your deal. Presto: You have saved quite a few bucks. The angle is for businesses to attract customers during slow points in the week, say 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday.

The bad news is Groupon Now is only available in Chicago at this time, but the company hopes to bring it to other cities should the concept take off. The regular deal site is available in more than 500 markets and 44 countries, so check out www.groupon.com for all kinds of fantastic buys on local adventures. As the company’s website says, “We want Groupon to be an addiction you can feel good about.”

In related news, Groupon may be moving toward an initial public offering, estimated to pull in around $15 billion to $25 billion, which could happen within the next week.

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