Friday Foto

Regular readers know that Kingstonist has a serious heart on for everything that’s local, especially when it comes to small businesses. Don’t believe me, then take minute to look over some of our past restaurant reviews, tweets, as well as the prizes we’ve offered up in one of our many contests.  Truth be told, I love it when Kingstonist is able to lend a helping hand and draw attention to new and exciting places to go eat, shop and enjoy in the Limestone City.  Unfortunately though, save for their respective websites, very few small and mighty local businesses advertise their sales online. While Twitter and Facebook work, they only get you so far, and it takes time to build a real following.

The lack of local businesses advertising deals in and around your inbox or favourite website may not matter if you’re a staunch locavore, but the appearance of targeted catalogue offerings from Best Buy and other corporate giants steers many Kingstonians away from local alternatives such as Just Hifi, and the once famous Kingston Computer Planet.  This week however, a few small businesses in the Limestone City took a brave, virtual step forward thanks to Groupon, one of many ‘deal of the day‘ promoters. Essentially Groupon works by publicizing deep discounts on local products and services.  This week’s local offerings included the following:

• Tues, 18 Jan, Bread & Butter Bakery and Fine Pastries: $8 for $20 worth of artisan baked goods (save $12, 60% discount)
• Weds, 19 Jan, Path Yoga: $40 for a one-month membership (save $100, 71% discount)
• Thurs, 20 Jan, Franselly: $25 for $50 Worth of Services (save $25, 50% discount)
• Fri, 21 Jan, Taylor Studios: $75 for a one Hour professional photography session, up to 100 proofs, and one 11″x14″ print (save $330, 81% discount)

I’m excited to see which local businesses are able to justify offering discounts in the future. Further, it will be interesting to see how Groupon fares against ‘deal of the day’ competitors such as Living Social, Certibuy, and all the rest. Regardless of who wins one thing is for certain, there are lots of online deals coming your way. Have you taken advantage of one of their deals yet? What are your most desired deals of the day?

TGIF, and thanks to Edith Maracle for today’s photo. Even the blue jay is on the look out for sweet deal!