This week was pretty exciting at Half Off Depot. Google announced that they were expanding their Offers program to include more cities and more deal partners. Half Off became one of 30 Google Offer partners. We have long considered ourselves to be a top ten participant in the online deal market so this in some way validates our position. And given the number of deal companies out there that puts us in pretty elite company. 

But the same response from almost everyone that I talk to about the deal is this. "Google Offers is a competitor, why do you want to work with them? Aren't you worried about Google stealing your customers or merchants?"

The answer to the latter is not really. The Google folks seem ernest and well intentioned. They are very professional and responsive. They care more about the customer experience then about money.

The answer to the former is that it seems to be a really good fit. Half Off Depot has a sales team that is second to none backed by a behind the scenes service offering that is really interesting to merchants and a unique approach to the space. This enables us to secure great local deals. Google is Google. They have unsurpassed reach on the Internet. A vast audience. When you combine our great local deals with Google's vast reach I think there is a way there is a way for us to work together to help both of our causes. 

So we did the deal. It has great promise. Sometimes doing a deal with a competitor is the right thing to do.

Beyond the potential of the Google partnership itself the deal signals something even greater. Half Off Depot has grown to the point where there are a number of logical partnership opportunities. Time to pursue them.