Have daily deals past the golden era?

New tracking numbers were just reported by Eperian hitwise that would indicate that the Groupon website has recently dropped significantly in visits in recent months. While there are some inherent problems with the numbers and we won’t really know until Groupon releases their quarterly report, it raises a good question: when is the daily deal “bubble” going to burst and when are they over their hump?

With a slew of new daily deal imitators popping up every day (I’ve counted two new ones in Fort Collins alone in the last month) and the incredible financial pressure they place on local businesses, not to mention the deferred financials and incredible debt ratio that Living Social and Groupon carry, it should be a very interesting, wild ride when the glamour passes and the daily deals enter back into the atmosphere.