Start Up CityBest Launches The First Collective Buying Website In Brazil. Customers Can Now Obtain Discounts Of 20% To 60% For Local Businesses In The Largest Cities In The Country.

    BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL, March 30, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- CityBest (www.citybest.com.br) is now live and it promises to bring significant savings to its customers. Here is how the service works:

- The company negotiates with local businesses discounts of 20 to 60%- for instance, bars and restaurants, spas, courses, night clubs, hotels, entertainment, and more.
- The company sends a daily email to its subscribers with the current offers. Typically, only two offers are published simultaneously and each offer lasts only a few days.
- Interested customers purchase the coupon, paying a small fee online.
- Coupons are issued only when the offer "activates"; i.e. when a pre-set minimum number of coupons are sold. If purchases do not reach this minimum volume, the offer is canceled and nobody pays anything. If the offer reaches its minimum, coupons continue to be sold until the offer expires.
- Customers print their coupons and present them to the merchant, receiving their discount.

The company says the model is attractive because everybody wins - customers get discounts and find out about new cool places in the city. Meanwhile, merchants attract a high traffic of qualified customers (with a minimum guaranteed).

With the recent explosion in the use of social networks and virtually instantaneous communications, this model is rapidly expanding abroad. In the USA, the most successful concept is Groupon (www.groupon.com). In one year, the company has sold over two million coupons and saved customers over USD 100 million. Sergio Oliveira, CityBest's managing director, says that the company performed extensive international research and developed a unique model to best suit the Brazilian market.

The use of www.citybest.com.br is free - customers pay only if they decide to purchase a coupon. The website is now live and it is accepting registration of customers and merchants. The company expects to publish the first offers in the next few weeks in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, expanding its reach to all major Brazilian cities by the end of the semester.

To read this article in Portuguese, please visit: http://citybest.com.br/news_detail.php?news_id=1

About: CityBest leverages the internet and social media to bring the collective buying power to consumers interested in different local attractions in major Brazilian cities. Each day, we feature a new offer with incredible discounts to a restaurant, spa, hotel or experience. To learn more, visit www.citybest.com.br.

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