Vancouver- and Asian-centric “Groupon”

Just as I’m trying to pare down the daily deals that land in my Inbox, I subscribe to yet another one, The Red Pocket. It’s not like I can take advantage of their deals for the forseeable future with them mostly/all with Vancouver establishments and I am in Toronto. Still, in the interest of “keeping up” and torturing myself a little, I subscribed via email.

To wit, The Red Pocket was established in late 2010 by a group of Vancouver-based Chinese-Canadian entrepreneurs who saw the opportunity to create a niche version of the the flourishing coupon sites and further make one accessible to a different (older), Chinese demographic with the interest in the deals that are sometimes inaccessible to them. It’s the kind of business I wish I had thought about creating but you need connections and marketing chops to get this started.

With a recent website revamp, I get the feeling The Red Pocket is pushing hard to get the word out about themselves. I subscribe via email because that’s somewhat easier to manage (apparently I don’t get so many personal emails anyways) but they also have Facebook and Twitter presence.

A recent deal is 50% off Church’s Fried Chicken, which appeals across cultural lines. But I was more interested in the other current and past deals at places I have a really good chance of going to (or have gone to). They include $17 for 2-course Beijing Duck meal at Bing Sheng, $11 for 2 appys and 2 BBT at Beefy Beef, $9 for 4 soy desserts and 2 2L soy drinks from Sunrise, $15 for 2 yogurts and 2 smoothies and 2 drinks from Qoola, $25 for 2 AYCE at POSH, and $20 for 10 BBT drinks from Flo, of 14 currently displayed deals. That’s a good proportion!

The site also offers some general interest articles about food, technology, entertainment, and style but I haven’t found the RSS feed to follow those easily through a feed reader.