Qype Launches Coupons, Available For Points Or Money

Qype, a Hamburg-based local search and review site to “Share your views on the most interesting places in your area”, today added a coupon option where members can exchange their points (you earn points by contributing to the site) for coupons in local stores etc.

Founder Stephan Uhrenbacher on their blog (in German):

In last 4 months we asked restaurants, bars, stores and service providers in Hamburg and Berlin whether they would be willing to offer Qype members something special for a voucher.
80 companies thought this was a good idea and offered a variety of coupons, from cocktail to savings on a massage.

Getting a voucher is easy: exchange points, receive a PDF file, print it out and have a valid voucher for one year. Also, if you do not have enough points you can just buy: the example below (2 for 1 on a cocktail) either costs 10 points or 1 Euro. You can buy these through Visa, Mastercard and direct debit.

Since Qype ranks well as one of the first search results for many restaurants or stores, providing a voucher on Qype may be an efficient and new way to promote their business. At the moment only a few towns are included and it should come at no surprise that Hamburg has by far the most to offer, but that probably will change soon.

Members on the other hand finally get more than ‘just’ some points for providing valuable content. Qype has tried to ease arguments around this problem with a system called Qype Insider: receive a special package with some goodies and be invited to Qype nights. But not everybody is able to attend these nights, happening in a few towns; so coupons are a better offering.

Qype manages to combine online and offline through this new offering: I may search online for a certain restaurant or bar, but once I have written my review there is no need for me to engage with the platform for this specific location any more. With coupons I am encouraged to surf the site and go discover, share information with my friends and make better use of the existing community features.

And even if I do not enter content, I can still sign up and get a voucher with money - which should increase user numbers if there are interesting offerings available. Coupon offerings are prominently displayed with the reviewed object:

Members on Qype can rate nearly everything, from a restaurant up to a doctor. They receive points for a variety of activities on the platform, for example for invited members (5 points), own reviews (3 for a new one) as well as feedback points on their entries (one). Features include a blog roll for your own blog and a Facebook application.

Qype also started their English version 8 weeks ago, and entries can be done for places in United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Croatia, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria.

Other sites for local review / search in Germany are Townkings and Townster.