Forum: "Offers & Discounts" category
What is the Forum category ‘Offers & Discounts’ for?
The purpose of this forum category is to allow any Olio user to share and promote a special offer or discount for their business/side hustle with the rest of the community.
These could be local in-person services like house cleaning, pet sitting, guitar lessons, etc.
They can also be businesses selling physical products like a local art & crafts shop, a corner store or an online business selling eco-friendly beauty products.
As the name suggests, anything promoted should be a one-off offer or a product/service discounted for the Olio community.
Does it mean it is now allowed to advertise products and services on Olio?
Yes as long as these are a one-off offer/discounted opportunity, posted into the Offers & Discounts category on the Forum.
If we see a lot of interest from our community in this functionality, we will evaluate investing more resources into building a better solution to promote offers & discounts..
How to advertise your offer or discount
Add a post by tapping the purple + button and selecting ‘Forum’ and then ‘Offers & Discounts’
A few important recommendations:
📸 Make sure your post includes a nice clear picture of your products or services
🙋♀️ Promote only your own products/services
📅 Make it clear if your offer is available only until a certain date
🌏 Make sure to select ‘Share locally’ if your service/product is relevant only to your local community
❌DO NOT
🎟️ Share referral codes or vouchers
🏬 Promote other people’s products/services
🇬🇧 Promote national offers/discounts unless they are for a sustainability or zero waste related product/service
Will any types of businesses be allowed to promote their products/services on the Forum?
For local offers and discounts, we won’t put any restrictions for the time being.
For non-local offers and discounts (e.g. an online business that sells products all over the UK), we allow only sustainable businesses to promote their products.
As we are testing a new proposition, we are purposely keeping restrictions minimal. The aim of this forum category is to learn as quickly as possible who in our Olio community uses this feature and what they find useful (or not). Based on the learnings from this experiment, we will decide whether to build a proper solution for our community.
How do I know that a user advertising their business on the Forum is not a scammer?
As usual, we recommend our community exercise caution when interacting with other users, especially when any form of payment is involved.
A few recommendations:
- Always trust your instincts. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
- Check a user's profile to see how recently they joined Olio, and if they have a star rating. You can also research the seller online as legitimate business owners will often have a traceable online presence
- Check the pictures in the post. Low-quality photos or stock images could be a red flag.
- Don't pay in advance. Be cautious when asked to make large payments upfront, especially if it’s a service you haven’t yet received or a product you haven’t seen.