Gobza Review: Commissions on Daily Deal purchases
Gob (noun): A lump or clot of a slimy or viscous substance.
Gobza probably isn’t the smartest choice for a MLM company name and possibly an indication as to why it’s unclear as to who owns or runs the company.
The Gobza privacy policy mentions that anyone who has questions about Gobza should write to ‘Tops Global Inc, One Riverway, Suite 1700 Houston, TX 77056’.
I wasn’t able to find any further information on Tops Global Inc., however a search of ‘One Riverway, Suite 17000 Houston, TX 77056’ reveals a number of businesses using this address, strongly indicating it’s a virtual office.
The domain ‘gobza.com’ was registered on the 19th August 2010, however the domain registration is set to private.
The server that hosts the Gobza website (50.63.46.1) appears to be a private hosting machine with a number of websites on it owned by a ‘Joanne Nicholls’, operating out of New South Wales in Australia.
Websites hosted on the same server as Gobza include:
- toptotoesalon.com (domain offline, registered in 2008 by Nicholls)
- bodaciouskids.com (website discontinued, domain registration set to private)
- toptotoespa.com (Nicholls listed as ‘Spa Director’ on website and owner of the domain)
- instantgiftvouchers.com (website contact address in NSW Australia, domain owned by Nicholls)
- salonsuccessclub.com.au (domain owned by Nicholls)
The exact relationship between Gobza, Top Global Inc. and Joanne Nicholls isn’t clear however it appears as if she is at the very least somehow involved in Gobza.
Why this isn’t mentioned or clarified on the Gobza website is a mystery. Read on for a full review of the Gobza MLM business opportunity.
The Gobza Product Line
Gobza themselves don’t offer any retailable products or services but instead allow businesses to sign up and advertise offers and deals via their website.
These deals are redeemed via coupons that Gobza members can then print out or store on their phone, to be presented to the business in question to redeem the advertised deal at a later date.
The Gobza Compensation Plan
Gobza utilises a unilevel compensation structure to pay out commissions on the purchase of Daily Deals offered through the company website.
In a unilevel compensation structure, you are placed at the top and everyone you recruit is placed directly underneath you (your level 1). When members on your level 1 recruit new members of their own, these form your level 2 and so on and so forth.
Called a ‘GobzaOffer’, each time a member on any of the first four levels of your unilevel compensation structure decides to purchase something, you earn a 2% commission on what I believe is the purchase price of the GobzaOffer itself.
Note the GobzaOffer price is not to be confused with the Daily Deal price. If a business runs a Daily Deal through Gobza offering a $500 TV for $400, you don’t earn 2% of $400.
Any Gobza member who wishes to redeem the GobzaOffer must first pay Gobza a fee. You earn 2% of that fee.
At the time of publication of this review, Gobza do not specify or give an example as to how much they will be charging members to redeem GobzaOffers.
Joining Gobza
Membership to Gobza is free, for both business and shopper members.
Conclusion
When I began researching the Gobza MLM opportunity for review my initial question was “so where does Gobza’s money come from?”
I saw that businesses took money directly from the customers and weren’t charged to place deals, so that left the customers.
Gobza don’t charge a fee for company membership and the commissions paid out do rely on actual sales, what is being sold however is a little unclear.
Traditionally MLM Daily Deal companies rely on the acquisition of advertising businesses via their members, who in turn get a cut of the membership/advertising fees these businesses pay and/or each transaction they are involved in.
This hasn’t gone too well and despite a few of these companies launching over the last few years (since Groupon took off), none have really managed to gain any solid traction.
Gobza are flipping this by having customers generate revenue for the company with each Daily Deal they wish to purchase. However with the business advertising the Daily Deal collecting money directly from the customer for the sale, that leaves Gobza collecting money from their members for merely providing access to the deal.
Gobza claim this approach is a new “patent-pending” advertising medium:
I suppose so long as the deal is unique to Gobza then this isn’t a problem as it is an exclusive service members can’t get anywhere else (despite Gobza not selling the end-product themselves).
All in all, company ownership issues and an unfortunate name aside, Gobza seem to be a decent enough improvement on MLM Daily Deals by shifting their revenue generation onto shoppers rather than the businesses advertising.
The Daily Deals equation does however require both businesses and advertisers to work out (especially here where no commissions are paid unless people actually purchase the deals), so whether or not Gobza members will stump up extra money in fees to access each individual deal pretty much dictates Gobza’s viability.
Charge too much and members won’t purchase GobzaOffers. Charge too little and Gobza themselves won’t make enough to survive and the commissions they pay out won’t attract heavy marketers.
If Gobza can fine tune this balance however, after countless flops, this might just be the first company to pull off a successful MLM Daily Deal hybrid.
Not sure how well this would take off. I don’t see any one, who already paid, say, $20 for $40 value of food at a restaurant is willing to pay another $2 to “redeem” the deal. Or even $1 to redeem.
And 2% of $1 is 2 CENTS.
Customers *are* Gobza members (shoppers). So where does the rest of that 98% fee go? Right into Gobza’s coffers?
As explained before, “daily deals” is ONLY good for stuff that has a HUGE profit margin, so deep discounts can be offered. It’s only good to build up buzz, not profit. Trying to tack on a MLM comp plan on that is crazy from the merchant side.
Adding a fee on the customer side is somewhat innovative, but how will the “customers” like it, when all the other daily deals sites, like Groupon, LivingSocial, even Woot, are free? if the fee’s low enough, then it’ll be seen as something tolerable, like “shipping and handling” when you buy stuff online.
The revenue share model is horribly described and I wouldn’t touch it until that is clarified with some examples.
BTW, the other place Gob is used is “gobsmacked”
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gobsmacked
Gobza hit you with the fee before you go off to the shop to claim your deal. I guess the idea is carrot and stick marketing, make the fee small enough in comparison to the deal savings so people don’t bother to think about it.
The deal examples they gave in their marketing vidoes was buy a computer get a free printer, 50% on travel, 30% off jewelry… stuff like that. I think they might have set their expecations high on what businesses are going to want to offer as discounts.
One of the reasons that consumers may choose to pay a small up front fee for a deal is that with Gobza, they are getting to buy what they want, when they want it, for less.
Instead of waiting for the right “daily deal” to come along, you can go to Gobza (once it launches next month) and search out what you’re planning to buy anyways.
For example, my friends and I are going to lunch in Houston one day. We go to Gobza, search out restaurants in Houston, find the one with the best deal that day, purchase the GobzaOffer, and redeem it immediately at the restaurant.
We were going to spend money at a restaurant anyways, and now we just saved some of that money we were going to spend, even after buying the GobzaOffer. K. Chang noted that if the GobzaOffer costs $1, the commission on that is only 2 cents. That’s correct, but, because Gobza pays 4 waves out in your GobzaVerse, the commissions can really explode.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say I refer 10 people to Gobza and they each spent $5 per month buying GobzaOffers. If those 10 people refer 10 more people each, and those 100 refer 10 more each, and those 1000 refer 10 more each, you have 11,110 people in your GobzaVerse.
If each of those people spend $5 per month buying GobzaOffers, you just earned a commission of $1,111. I know that not everyone is going to spend $5 per month, but I also know that a lot of people will refer more than 10 people each. I’ve personally referred over 100 already!
Even if it’s only half as good as the example I’ve given, I’ve just made an extra $500 per month helping people save money on things they’re planning on purchasing anyways, and helped businesses advertise for free. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
As far as the founders of Gobza, check out the Houston Business Journal this Friday for more info. This is a totally legit company that I am so excited to be a part of.
For more info, (OzEdit: spam removed).
Uh, you do know that there are plenty of daily dals around offering this now right? Many who don’t have to worry about the extra overheads of a MLM compensation plan.
The days of daily deal sites offering just the one daily deal per day are long gone. Most if not all have a a coupon division now that is searchable.
Touting this feature as being “exclusive” to Gobza isn’t going to cut it.
There appears to be a bit of a grey area in that all these members would be paying Gobza for mere access to deals, rather than any actual products (printable vouchers are not a product in my opinion).
The actual product transaction is still between the business advertising and the customer and has nothing to do with Gobza. Following the money 100% of the money paid out by Gobza is thus derived from members… who are paying Gobza for access to a coupon that in itself holds no inherent value (no money passes between Gobza and the advertising business).
Why do I have to read some journal just to find out who is running Gobza? Why not just name them here?
@Gobza Fan — you’re making some sense, unlike a lot of the MLM fandom who clearly have NO idea what they do.
So you *do* pay a small fee to redeem the offer, correct?
But isn’t the whole IDEA of “daily deal” is ONE deal per day, instead of a shopping cart full of different deals?
So it’s clearly that if you offer a deal, say Mexican restaurant, even if you have 10000 members in Houston, only a SMALL PORTION will participate. (restaurant’s too far, wrong type of food, I don’t have time…) Not to mention the geographical limitations of such deals (limited to major metro areas)
Even if you have 10000 people in your downline (pays down 4 levels) I doubt 10% of them would be actually redeeming any offers on any given day, esp. if it’s only ONE deal daily. I think the numbers are close to 1%.
A typical Groupon deal in San Francisco gets 1000 buys. I’m sure there are WELL OVER 100000 members for Groupon in San Francisco. Groupon has several HUNDRED deals running in San Francisco now, all active.
I think your numbers are overly optimistic.
Read this article about some Groupon stats, and then ask yourself: can Gobza match Groupon’s success rate, and can I personally benefit from that if they are nowhere NEAR as successful?
http://therealtimereport.com/2011/08/12/groupon-doubles-subcribers-in-2011-but-only-20-have-made-purchases/
Oops, a typical RESTAURANT offer (like $20 worth of food for $10) gets like 1000 buys. The more expensive stuff like massage, spa, and such ($40-50 or more) gets a lot less.
When you throw in the competition to Gobza : Groupon, Living Social, Facebook Deals, Google Offers (as part of Google shopper) and similar niche like Bloomspot and TravelZoo, this niche is getting saturated FAST.
There is NO barrier to entry, so the first guy in often has the advantage. No-name startups like Gobza is at a DISTINCT DISADVANTAGE.
how is Gobza an MLM? does anyone here know what MLM is?
MLM requires you to pay a fee to sign up. most MLM’s require you to pay monthly fees. Then you have to enroll and sell the product.
Gobza members dont have to sell anything. They dont have to buy anything. They’re simply inviting friends to connect.
Its no different than inviting someone to join Facebook, Twitter, etc. I saw someone say, “why would a person pay for a gobzafee?” Who wouldn’t pay $1 to save $10? Or $50 to save $1000?
If it costs a business nothing to advertise their products and services to thousands of people anytime they want, and they dont have to split any of the revenue generated – why wouldn’t they?
@Chaz
Because it uses a MLM compensation plan. Gobza pay out commissions on multiple levels.
Oh dear. Paying a fee to sign up is not a requirement in MLM, neither are monthly fees.
…and getting paid for it. Not selling anything, recruiting people and getting paid for it.
Yes they don’t get paid unless certain conditions are met (people buying virtual coupons (not products) from Gobza)) but nonetheless, that’s the idea.
Horseshit. Neither Facebook or Twitter will pay you out commissions based on whether or not people you’ve recruited purchase coupons from either Facebook or Twitter.
Unless you’re going to back these up with real world examples, these are mere anecdotal hyptotheticals not worth entertaining.
Did you actually *read* what GobzaFan wrote?
Pays 4 waves out, or 4 levels down, whatever. multi-level payout. Multi-level marketing.
MLMs are allowed to charge an enrollment fee for MINIMAL fee, but they don’t have to.
Operative word here is “most”. They are not required to.
You are enrolled in Gobza, and you are selling the discount offers. “Check out this great discount, and that one, and that one, just pay a small fee to redeem!”
And they get paid when friends, and friends of friends, 4 levels down, spend money. So? If it’s so good discount, why wouldn’t they spend some on the discounts and enjoy some themselves?
I am not even sure what’s your point. Did Oz at any point imply Gobza was illegal or shady? I know I didn’t. Or do you just hate the word “MLM” associated with Gobza?
Facebook and twitter don’t pay recruiters who bring in people who then spent money on the site. Don’t believe that’s a valid comparison. I think you meant to compare the “social” aspect, but left out the PAYMENT aspect.
Why would any one PAY $1 to redeem a 50% off offer when they can get the same sort of offer on, say, Groupon, for free?
Did you know that Groupon drove at least one business out of business? The bakery offered a “loss leader”, and too many people signed up. She lost so much money on this one deal, she ran out of cash and was forced to close. And that’s NOT counting what she paid Groupon. That’s actually quite minor.
The business have to offer some pretty deep discounts, and Gobza need businesses who offer steep discounts to lure in the members. Groupon is famous for 50% off or more discounts. If Gobza can’t match that it is DOOMED.
Remember, Groupon has a multi-year HEAD START, *and* Groupon is FREE to users. Gobza better offer something REALLY special to justify that extra $1, or they can forget about signing up businesses and shoppers from Groupon, Google Offers, Livingsocial, and so on.
-so by your definition essentially any company that has a national sales department on earth is a mlm. For example, in many organizations if a salesperson closes a deal, he receives a commission.
Then his regional manager gets a cut of the commission. Then a national head of sales receives a portion. So is that multi-level marketing because they all received a portion of the commission?
in the case of gobza, nobody has sold anything in order to receive a commission. they’ve simply invited someone to connect with them.
-wrong. Gobza users NEVER sell discounts to anyone. Gobza users can go on the site themselves, and browse the site themselves for what they want, when they want to buy it.
Again, GobzaUsers NEVER sell discounts to anyone. I think this is a major point of confusion for people.
Uh?? You’re not making any sense, so forgive my confusion. You said, if its so good a discount, why wouldnt they spend some on the discounts and enjoy some themselves. Of course they would purchase a discount themselves if they like it, who wouldn’t? THere’s no requirement that friends have to buy it.
Again, you’re not understanding how Gobza works. Gobza members are not selling discounts or pushing their friends to buy discounts. They simply invite a friend to sign up, and that’s the end of it. What the friend chooses to buy on Gobza from that point forward is entirely up to the friend.
-Yes you’re correct, I’m talking about the social aspect of it. However, nobody is paid simply for inviting friends. K. Chang, let’s say you have 10 friends that you invite to sign up. Now they’re connected to you.
Anytime THEY decide to go on the site to browse offers, whether its for a taco, a toyota, stuffed animals, a tv, ceiling fans, whatever they want, if they purchase it, they pay a GobzaFee ($1 to save $10 for example) download the coupon, go to the business, show the coupon, and get what they want + the savings.
SF notwithstanding, there’s a reason Groupon lost over a billion dollars last year. because the business gets screwed in the deal.
A better question to ask, “why would a business post a $10 for $20 offer on Groupon, then split the $10 with Groupon so they only get $5? When they can do the same thing on Gobza, and instead of only collecting $5 for the $20 worth of stuff/food they sold, they’re instead collecting $10?
the business doubles their revenue on Gobza. And the user is still only paying $1 to save $10.
Name one.
And please don’t try and infer that a base salary is “a cut” of a sale in the same way it is (a direct commission) in network marketing. That’s just silly as a salary is just that.
You’ll find your marketing spiels won’t get you very far here.
People recruit new members into Gobza on the idea of earning commissions on the purchase of vouchers from the company itself. These commissions are paid out on four levels.
Not literally, but this is what’s marketed. Save money, blahblahblah – it’s what is used to market Gobza to prospective members to get them to join.
Yes, and supermarkets don’t really sell products either. Customers just walk in and that’s the end of it. If they decide to purchase something well that’s obviously not a sale.
Gobza members earn commissions on the sale of vouchers/coupons to members in their downline. Part of working the business is marketing these “deals” to their downlines (and prospective members).
Gobza is a daily deals coupon site, it’s not a social network. Fail (along with the already failure of comparing Twitter and Facebook to Gobza when the former don’t offer commissions to members using a MLM compensation structure).
Here’s how Gobza works in a quick nutshell. I signed up for it specifically because its NOT mlm.
You sign up for Gobza. Its free to sign up.
Now you can use the site anytime you want, to browse for anything you want. If you see an offer you want, you can buy it. There’s no requirement that you do so.
And that can be the end of it. That’s how Gobza will work for a lot of people.
Or, if you want to, you can invite other friends to join Gobza as well. For example – if you see a cool movie, you tell your friends to go see it. You eat at a good restaurant, you tell your friends to go eat there. You join a cool site (like Gobza), you tell your other friends to join. There’s NO requirement from Gobza that you invite others to join up.
But say you DO invite your Facebook friends to connect with you on Gobza. Some might sign up, others wont. Others will be invited by someone else, a business, a non-profit, etc. It makes no difference to Gobza if you invite others to sign up. Because again, there’s no requirement that you do so.
But lets just say you DID invite 10 of your buddies. They signed up, and now they’re connected to you.
Well, from that point forward, what your buddies do on gobza.com is entirely up to them. Gobza does not encourage nor require Gobza members to actively push discounts on the site. “hey go buy this discount, hey go buy this” etc etc. there is NONE of that. Because again – when you sign up on Gobza, what you do with it is entirely up to you.
You can sign up for Gobza, and never buy a discount and never tell a friend about it. Beccause there’s again – zero requirements.
@oz
you’ll figure it out eventually. you’re stuck in a paradigm. you only know to compare gobza to mlm because that’s all you can compare it to. not because that’s what it is.
you’re like the person 120 years ago who saw the first automobile, and then said, “neat carriage, where do I put my horses so I can pull it?”
why did they classify an automobile as a horseless carriage? because their frame of reference, or the paradigm they were in, it was the only logical conclusion they could reach
again – you’re stuck in a paradigm. Gobza is not a daily deals site. deals are posted in real-time 24/7/365 by businesses whenever they want.
if anything, its a real-time deal site. the business can remove the offer anytime they want
they can add other offers if they want they can change the offer anytime they want they can set a limit on the number of sales they generate, so that when that number is reached their ad automatically comes off the site
they can track their sales in real time vs their competition.
if mexican restaurant A is offering $5 off while mexican restaurant B is offering $6 off and generating more sales, then mexican restaurant A can log into the site, and change their offer to $6.25 off, 6.06 off, $20 off, etc anything they want, and then show up 1st in the search results when someone searches for mexican restaurants (or at least until another mexican restaurant decides to offer a better deal).
@Chaz — perhaps *you* are stuck in a “not-paradigm”.
What you’re arguing is Gobza is a “coupon-site”, where business posts discount offers, and MEMBERS have to PAY to use those coupons.
You need to keep in mind that people are used to be idea of discounts being FREE. Discount coupons are included in Sunday newspapers, mailed to your house, mailed to your email inbox, found via websites, offered on Groupon, Google Offers, etc. etc.
Once people have experience FREE discounts, nobody is going to PAY for discounts. (Buyer’s clubs like Costco are the only exceptions, and Costco fee to join is rather minimal and certainly NOT paid per-use)
Charging for something that used to be free is a great way to cause massive rejections. Remember airlines tried all those fees, remember? Baggage fee, e-Ticket fee, the 1-800 booking fee? People *hate* them because those used to be FREE.
And here comes Gobza, *charging* money to use discounts.
*sigh*
@Chaz
None of that changes the fact that members you recruit into Gobza are placed in your downline and the company pays out commissions on four levels based on coupon purchases. What you do on the site or how you market it does not change the Gobza compensation plan or business model.
4 levels on commissions and downlines? Multilevel marketing. Get over it son.
As for the Daily deals label, most if not all Daily Deals websites today offer deals that last longer than a day. Combining coupons to Daily Deals is nothing new.
Let’s cut the crap please, mobody is joining Gobza for the social experience that doesn’t exist. They’re signing up new members hoping to earn a commission on their voucher purchase (100% internal consumption) and the purchases of their downlines.
@Oz
you’re simply not able to get past your narrow thinking you’re stuck in the old world paradigm
Let’s get serious, daughter how do you know there wont be a social experience with Gobza? have you seen the business plan? how do you know why people are joining Gobza?
businesses are joining because its free advertising people are signing up to get discounts. some people and businesses are inviting others to join because they like the concept you make it sounds like someone’s being deceptive simply for inviting their friends/etc to sign up.
“hey John, connect with me on Gobza, its a really cool site that lets you shop for discounts anytime you want”
wow – how very deceptive. you just invited your friend to a site that’s going to help them save money! ohhhhh, wow!!
its no different than inviting a friend to a restaurant you like, a movie you saw, etc and Gobza is simply rewarding the community for spreading it around Gobza has figured out how to monetize viral passage
The Super Bowl charged 3.6 million dollars for a 30 second ad for 50 million viewers Youtube Charlie Bit my Finger – 450 million views.
how much money did Youtube and the video uploadeer make? (hint – not very much) Why? Because they haven’t figure out how to monetize viral passage Gobza has
End of story
@K Chan
Yes – discounts are available on daily deal sites.
The daily deal site tells the user what they can buy, when they can buy it, and if the user wants to buy, they buy it.
The daily deal site tells the business – you can advertise with us, and we’re going to keep half your money
Yes, discounts are available in Newspapers. The business not only has to give a discount, they have to pay to get it out there
Gobza says – user, you shop for what you want, when you want it, and save on it. Business, you advertise what you want, when you want, at any price you want, and keep all the revenue you generate. And dont pay a dime to advertise it
Do you honestly think a business would prefer to give a discount to consumers in addition to paying a medium a set amount just to advertise said discount?
When they can offer the same discount and advertise it for free? Where’s the business owner going to advertise?
Is the business owner going to risk advertising dollars + a discount? When they can risk nothing and advertise the same discount for free?
source – http://definitions.uslegal.com/m/multilevel-marketing/
Key point in the definition of mlm – “A person, recruited by the company to SELL a product, earns commissions;”
Gobza members are not SELLING anything. Ever.
Gobza members like myself are simply inviting friends to join the site. Period. In the same way somebody invites you to join Facebook, or invites you to a party, or invites you to a restaurant, or invites you to join a country club, or invites you to a movie, etc.
If I invite my friends and they join the site, cool. If my friends decide to buy something on the site in order to save money, whether its a toy, a taco, a tv, a toyota, etc – the business is happy because they just got a sale, and didn’t have to pay advertising dollars to get it.
my friend is happy because they got to save money on something they wanted. and Gobza decides to reward me simply for having invited my friend to join. that’s not MLM.
nobody changed what they’re buying nobody changed what they’re selling.
all of your arguments are based on old-world thinking. you have nothing to compare Gobza to, so you can only compare it to what you know, stuck in a paradigm. you’re trying to put a square peg into a round-hole.
Louisiana is one of the most strict states in the US about multi-level marketing companies. And yet, the Louisiana College of Law has already certified that Gobza is not MLM.
In fact – they’ve joined Gobza! To help their fundraising by simply inviting others to connect with them on Gobza! They’re not selling anything to anyone.
They’re not telling anyone to buy anything. Its free to join
@Chaz, you’re just arguing in circles.
You keep arguing that businesses would rather NOT pay for the coupons AND the discount. They would want the customers to pay for the discounts.
While it makes sense from the business POV, you’re IGNORING the fact that CUSTOMERS will NOT pay for coupons because they never HAD TO. I gave you many examples, you simply ignored them.
Gobza simply shifted the burden of coupon costs from the biz to the customers. This is NOT going to work, because customers NEVER had to pay for cuopons before.
Imagine going home for your Christmas dinner and your mom hands you a bill for $10 after the dinner.
That’s what Gobza’s doing. NOT GOING TO WORK.
You’re stuck in trying to explain it’s not MLM. You’re IGNORING a far more FUNDAMENTAL problem: how to convince people to PAY for coupons when they NEVER HAD TO.
@Chaz
How you are personally marketing Gobza is irrelevant.
You sign up to Gobza and then you market the coupons (which are sold through the company). For each coupon sold, you earn a commission. Commissions are available down 4 levels in your downline.
That’s Multi-level marketing.
You want to carry on about Gobza being a social network when it isn’t, that’s your business. At the end of the day mechanically that’s not what happens (because there is no Gobza social network). Members are joining up for the coupons, which you are marketing and earning a commission on when one is sold.
And of course I saw the business model, the entire review is based on it.
As a side note, one of the greater ironies throughout this discussion and Chaz’s insistance that I’m stuck in my “narrow thinking” and “old world paradigm”, is the fact that these very qualities can be flipped and explain Chaz’s refusal to see the MLM side of Gobza.
MLM, just like anything else evolves and it’s the same “narrow thinking” and “old world paradigms” you claim others have that prevent you (and anyone else who thinks Gobza isn’t MLM, despite using a MLM compensaton plan) from seeing that.
Chaz is correct. Gobza just confuses you folks because it’s a completely unique platform.
Oz-
Not sure if you’re very intelligent are not. Ive explained MULTIPLE times. I will do so again.
NO-BODY-EV-ER-SELLS-NOR-MARKETS-COUPONS! Let me repeat
Nobody.
Ever.
Sells.
Or.
Markets.
Coupons.
PERIOD.
When you sign up on Gobza.com, that’s it.
If you invite 10 of your friends and they sign up via your GobzaLink – they’re now connected to you.
If your friends DECIDE to go on Gobza.com and buy something, whether they’re wanting a toy, a television, some shoes, etc, whatever they buy – you earn a commission fee from Gobza. At not point did you ever have to market a coupon to them. PERIOD!!!
YOU.
NEVER.
ONCE.
HAD.
TO.
MARKET.
A.
COUPON.
TO.
THEM.
AND.
YET.
YOU.
EARN.
MONEY.
Am I taking crazy pills, Oz? How can you not understand this? Wake up dude. Gobza is NOT MLM
You operate an MLM review site. All you know is MLM. You’re stuck in a paradigm, and therefore have been unable to grasp what Gobza is.
Wake up.
You’re marketing membership and are paid out using a MLM compensation plan.
Gobza is MLM, get over it son.
Not at all, since you are PAID due to your downlines redeeming offers. It’s MLM. Here’s Chaz’s own words:
Call it waves instead of levels, and call it “out” instead of “down”, but it’s still multi-level.
Chaz seem to be stuck on the “sell vs. no sell” distinction. Multi-level marketing doesn’t necessarily involve selling a particular product(s) or service(s). In this case, what is being marketed is Gobza’s offers.
again K Chang,
You’re missing the point.
NOBODY IS MARKETING OFFERS!
Ever.
Zilch.
Nada.
Marketing offers is how DynaDealz works.
You sign up for DynaDealz, you pay a fee, and then you go around to your friends and try and get them to buy offers via DynaDealz.
With Gobza – all anyone EVER does is this: hey check out gobza, it’s a cool new search engine for discounts. you can sign up here (Ozedit: Gunna cut you off there, rest of the rant isn’t needed).
@Chaz
Everybody raise your hand to your forehead.
Now slap your forehead really hard.
Son, that right there (“hey check out gobza, it’s a cool new search engine for discounts”) is you marketing Gobza’s offers to get people to sign up.
Funny watching some people say this isn’t a MLM. It’s MLM 101. You get paid commission for recruiting people. Period.
And for those wondering, the company is run by a guy named Tim Dillard out of Houston.
The “tops” business he tried running for years was basically a search engine company – it was sort of like a paid version of Angies list where companies could pay to be a “top (insert industry here) in (insert area here)”. So a “top nail salon in los angeles”.
Yeah…
So it’s marketing a search engine for offers. In the end, it’s STILL marketing offers.
You’re just splitting hair.
A few things I would like to point out after a long read;
In insurance industry, if an agent makes a sale, the person recruting him makes commission, sale manager makes commission, branch manager makes commission, regional sale manager makes commission. Same things apply to mutual fund industry, and so on…
I think Chaz’s point of view is Gobza eventually put the old version of deals site such as groupon, living social out of business because they offer a pathform can benefit the business owners and make more sense. In fact, groupon already proven they are hurting business owners more than helping.
Is a matter of time business owners will switch from those ‘old’ deal site to a new version. People will pay a relative small fee for big discount afterward. I like this idea but will Gobza success? Only time can tell.
One thing for sure is people still buy coupon book nowadays because a lot of businesses still not afford to put up their deals in online deal site.
I have no idea Whether Gobza is a MLM, but who care? As long as I sign up for free, I can save money, my friends can save money, that’s matter!
You *did* read the part about you need to pay a fee to ‘redeem’ the offer, right?
Paying a fee to redeem an offer is not the issue. From the consumers point of view, is the matter of whether it worths or not.
If you asked me to pay $1 to redeem a coupon which can save me $20 but I can find the same coupon with other places without charging me anything on top, I won’t pay the fee. But I would rather pay $10 to redeem the same $20 coupon if I can’t find the same deal elsewhere.
To Chaz, who find the vendors? Who verify the authentic of the deals? Oz is right, whether the income stream can balance out is the most important issue. As a consumer, enjoy the deal hunting now.
Also, this idea is not new. I am a golfer. I used to purchase coupon book. But now I mostly booking my tee time through golfnow, pay a relatively small fee to save 50%.
This company just duplicate this idea, the different is rather than spending thousands and thousands marketing dollars to promote their website, they use some degree of ‘network marketing’ to market Gobza. Is a smart idea and at least i am interested in looking at their book.
Just spent some time reading through all of the posts. All I have to say is thank God Thirdparty got involved here. I think Thirdparty cuts through all the BS and tells it as it is.
Is it an MLM company? Who cares? If the site is offering a better platform for businesses to advertise their deals, I can only see that as a plus. I do believe that more business will leave the Groupon model as it has proven to hurt business.
Remember, the business are paying out a great deal of money for each Groupon deal sold. Business will not have to pay out anything for Gobza.
As far as the consumer, I agree with Thirdparty in that if I can find the same discount elsewhere, like Groupon, where I can avoid the minimal Gobza fee, then I will buy from Groupon.
However, if I can’t find that discount elsewhere, let’s say 50% off my next bill to my favorite restaurant, and the deal is in front of me via Gobza, I will gladly spend $3 (or whatever the Gobza fee is) to obtain that discount.
As far as the compensation plan, it sure does sound like a MLM payout plan…..but what is so wrong with that? Why wouldn’t you want a piece of the pie?
Let’s look at Facebook. We all invite friends to join Facebook, right? Doesn’t cost us anything….doesn’t cost our friends anything. But Facebook profits because they can show advertisers that they have a captive audience and advertisers pays Facebook mega bucks for that…..and I hven’t seen one cent come back to me. Has anyone else?
Gobza on the other hand is counting on referral marketing to spread the word….just like Facebook. And if one of your referred contacts buys a deal and pays the small Gobza fee, you get 2% of that fee. But it get’s better! You get 2% of all the fees collected on 4 levels of connections. Great!
I don’t see why people condemn this model. We all refer people to good products and services and most of the time we get nothing for it. Here we have the chance to refer and possibly make a little bit of money.
All I know is that I signed up. Why not?
Nothing wrong with joining and enjoying the offers.
You have to realize BehindMLM is evaluating opportunities with POV of the common affiliate thinking of joining and making money.
While ThirdParty’s points are perfectly valid, they are actually not that relevant, because he evaluated it from the point of the “consumer”, not as an affiliate looking for income.
In MLMs, there needs to be a distinct separation of affiliate vs. customer. No such distinction in Gobza. Every affiliate is a customer, and every customer is an affiliate. That in itself, may be a red flag to the FTC, who governs all trade, not just MLMs.
Just realize you won’t make much money off of this at all. It’s not “really” an income opportunity. At best, this is a “part-time” biz, maybe let you eat out a few times more per month.
As an income opportunity, this one was found wanting. But feel free to enjoy the offers.
Please don’t take my words as promoting this business. I said as a consumer is a no brainer, refer some friends to sign up, of course.
Is a getting rich scheme, I doubt it! The success of this type of company is all depend on how much they have and how much they willing to burn at the early stage. I won’t recommend this company for those who are looking for opportunity for their career.
I bet either the company closed down in few months by not making enough money to justify or they rip off the compensation plan for members simply because they already have enough people and businesses in their data base. In both cases, the lifetime of this opportunity is too short.
I would rather to be their customer and enjoy while they are still around.
All I see in this website is talking about MLM businesses. I can’t find any good opportunity you mention here. Since I am new to this site, I wonder if this website is all about bad MLM companies.
You will not examine the good one, right?
There is no bias involved in the selection of MLM companies reviewed on BehindMLM.
I do have a long list of companies for review (over 150 long now I think at last count) that I’m slowly getting through. Readers are constantly suggesting new companies for review too which adds to the list.
That said I do tend to favour more recent companies for review as information on them is usually scarce and most in demand. Over time I’m hoping BehindMLM will grow as a review database covering as many companies as I can find the time to review and cover. That’s always going to be an ongoing work in progress.
@ThirdParty-
Both people, non-profits, and businesses can refer in any business into gobza via their GobzaLink. If they sign up through you, then anytime the business generates a sale you earn a commission from Gobza.
I have over 1500 people connected to me within 4 degrees of separation (or 4 waves). And I have over 400 businesses connected to me within 4 degrees of separation. This is in only 8 weeks of spreading Gobza, and the site just went live yesterday.
Within 6 months, I anticipate having close to 6000 people connected to me (4 levels) and perhaps close to 600 businesses.
If my 6000 connections average spending around $10 a month on Gobza, I’ll be making $1200 a month in residuals from Gobza. If my 600 businesses average selling around $50 worth of Gobza offers per month, I’ll be earning an additional $600 a month.
So $1800 per month – not a whole lot of money, but certainly not bad for a RESIDUAL check.
Where will that number grow in 1 year? 2 years? If Gobza pulled the plug on their commission structure, they’d go out of business overnight, so can’t imagine they’d do that.
You dont get paid for recruiting people. You get paid if someone you referred uses the site to save money. Or you get paid if a business you referred uses the site to generate a sale.
If I refer someone to my salesguy at the Chevy dealership, and they decide to buy a car, my salesguy pays me a referral fee out of his commission. Part of his commission goes to the sales manager as well. Is that MLM?
Or
If I refer my friend to a Realtor, and they buy a house through that Realtor, the Realtor gives me a gift card as a referral fee out of his commission.
Another art of the Realtor’s commission goes to their broker. And another part of their commission goes to whichever Realtor referred them into the brokerage. So is that MLM?
Gobza is no different than either of these two examples.
@Chaz
Refer, recruit – same thing.
If you don’t recruit anyone (member or business) you can’t earn anything.
Realtors don’t pay out commissions on multiple levels, nor does someone buying a house join anything, free or otherwise. Thus your example is irrelevant.
And WHERE is that system common, unless you know the company owner, the sales guy or any other in the company? Southern Sudan or something?
Traditional brick and mortar companies will usually NOT stimulate to “referral commissions” among their customers, but SOME type of businesses can have it as a common solution, e.g. timeshare sale (because they have that kind of marketing efforts included in their prices).
I’ll assume you mean NORMAL brick and mortar business paying their NORMAL customers referrao fees? AFAIK, that is NOT very common for that type of business.
It’s also considered unethical to introduce a system like that for a business, if it’s not commonly used among similar businesses in the same market — “common business practice”. But it’s nothing wrong in it if you have some special relation to the business owner or something, making you become not a normal customer.
Neither your dentist, your doctor, your lawyer, your grocery dealer nor your car dealer should pay “referral fees” as a common solution — in most regulated countries. But the system may of course be very common in e.g. Uganda or Sudan, in some specific areas.
Founder is Tim Dillard.
Gobza is not a MLM. The original company Tops in Texas is legit, topsintexas.net. They are a marketing company best in the houston metro. I have worked with them for my business. Great company, great marketing mind.
Gobza is a great tool for consumers and businesses, better than the daily deals
Unilevel MLM compensation plan? MLM company.