We know that the Coronavirus has taken over all of the news, social media, and already many deals and discussions on here too. And while we hope this site can provide some distraction and appreciate some may think “Oh no, please not another post!“, we also know how serious the situation is. So we think it is necessary to let you know how the situation will affect what you see on hotukdeals and some parts of how we work at the moment, and that it is likely it could affect it even more in the future.
Of course, we cannot see the future and know no more than you do. Because of the dynamics of the situation, we cannot make any precise predictions as to what might change exactly and when, or whether anything further will change at all for hotukdeals or not.
As a company, we too are naturally facing new challenges. Last Wednesday we changed company policy to say anyone who wants to can work from home can do so (normally we are about 50/50), then one day later we made home office compulsory. Not primarily because of the fear that an employee might fall ill (although this of course also played a role), but above all in order to do justice to our social responsibility and to limit social contact or rather physical proximity and - if it is in our power -to slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible.
We are in the lucky position of being able to do the vast majority of tasks in our jobs from home - though we appreciate many people cannot. Many of you will be working from home by now and are probably working out (like we are!) that this causes new problems: How can you work at home if you have to take care of the children at the same time? How does the cooperation work if you can’t just chat with someone for a short time over a coffee? How do you make sure that the normal and absolutely necessary ‘off topic’ chatting between colleagues can still take place?
Thanks to a great team of management, HR and others, I think we are very well positioned and prepared (or as well as we can), but of course we don’t know exactly what it will be like when perhaps entire supply chains break down and there may simply be no more deals in the true sense of the word, because no retailer has more planning security and their own budget for such actions is reduced.
Or alternatively, maybe the site will be flooded with deal submissions as more and more people self-isolate or work from home, and we will have the opposite challenge of dealing with the moderation of all that content to keep the site usable.
We will therefore analyse the situation on a daily basis and, based on our information, make the decisions that seem most reasonable to us. Due to the dynamics of the whole situation, we will probably not be able to think about every decision for days, but may be forced to react quickly or, in the best case, act naturally.
Just for example, some threads that previously would be placed in discussions may be moved to deals, if we think that will get important information to people more quickly. You may also see some different types of content published and promoted compared to usual - we check what users are looking for in our search, and also follow the news closely (for instance, at the moment we are giving greater prominence to information about supermarkets, and freebies you can use to pass the time, than we normally would)
Of course we will keep you informed about every major change. And of course your feedback is still very important to us. Nevertheless I ask for your understanding if you are dissatisfied with one of our decisions or changes, and patience if we aren’t able to communicate instantly any changes as they often happen a a very fast pace.. I can assure you that we will always try to make decisions in the interest of the whole community or that this is by far our highest priority. Since the situation is completely new for us and we don’t have a master plan for something like this in our drawer, we will certainly make mistakes!
After considering back and forth, I have decided to leave the comments open here. We won’t have definitive (or sometimes any!) answer to your questions, and I know that can be frustrating. But we really do want to hear how you are doing, and how you feel we are doing, so please do comment below- but hopefully you can be patient if we don’t have all the answers Also please, this is not the right place to discuss the ins and outs of COVID-19 or government policy.
Temporary updates to posting/community rules
As mentioned in the post, we are going to make a lot more, quicker changes to rules to cover this uncertain period, and I will keep a log of the main ones here
Deals not allowed
Any deals that mean you have to go in-store to a shop that isn’t a supermarket or grocery store - including click and collect. Any prices for deals in non-supermarkets must now include delivery cost in the title
If NHS discounts require going in-store, we’re afraid these will no longer be allowed either
Still allowed
Any deals which allow Delivery
Petrol / Diesel price offers still allowed.
In-store supermarket deals for all types of items. We will be warning not to take a special trip as stock cannot be guaranteed.
Even though the advice now differs between the four countries of the UK, we don’t get many in-store deals posted for stores that are only in Scotland/Wales/NI with none in England, so in general I don’t think we need to differentiate between regions with what is and isn’t allowed. Please flag any deals you do see that fall into this category though and we can discuss how to deal with these
Update 12 June
From Monday 15 June all in-store deals will be allowed again, regardless of the type of shop. To help people stay safe and well informed, @Dan_82 has pulled together this epic guide of different stores’ plans, and the measures they will have in place - hotukdeals.com/dis…282 - please comment in there if you have any more info on the stores include or any others.
Hi all.
We know that the Coronavirus has taken over all of the news, social media, and already many deals and discussions on here too. And while we hope this site can provide some distraction and appreciate some may think “Oh no, please not another post!“, we also know how serious the situation is. So we think it is necessary to let you know how the situation will affect what you see on hotukdeals and some parts of how we work at the moment, and that it is likely it could affect it even more in the future.
Of course, we cannot see the future and know no more than you do. Because of the dynamics of the situation, we cannot make any precise predictions as to what might change exactly and when, or whether anything further will change at all for hotukdeals or not.
As a company, we too are naturally facing new challenges. Last Wednesday we changed company policy to say anyone who wants to can work from home can do so (normally we are about 50/50), then one day later we made home office compulsory. Not primarily because of the fear that an employee might fall ill (although this of course also played a role), but above all in order to do justice to our social responsibility and to limit social contact or rather physical proximity and - if it is in our power -to slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible.
We are in the lucky position of being able to do the vast majority of tasks in our jobs from home - though we appreciate many people cannot. Many of you will be working from home by now and are probably working out (like we are!) that this causes new problems: How can you work at home if you have to take care of the children at the same time? How does the cooperation work if you can’t just chat with someone for a short time over a coffee? How do you make sure that the normal and absolutely necessary ‘off topic’ chatting between colleagues can still take place?
Thanks to a great team of management, HR and others, I think we are very well positioned and prepared (or as well as we can), but of course we don’t know exactly what it will be like when perhaps entire supply chains break down and there may simply be no more deals in the true sense of the word, because no retailer has more planning security and their own budget for such actions is reduced.
Or alternatively, maybe the site will be flooded with deal submissions as more and more people self-isolate or work from home, and we will have the opposite challenge of dealing with the moderation of all that content to keep the site usable.
We will therefore analyse the situation on a daily basis and, based on our information, make the decisions that seem most reasonable to us. Due to the dynamics of the whole situation, we will probably not be able to think about every decision for days, but may be forced to react quickly or, in the best case, act naturally.
Just for example, some threads that previously would be placed in discussions may be moved to deals, if we think that will get important information to people more quickly. You may also see some different types of content published and promoted compared to usual - we check what users are looking for in our search, and also follow the news closely (for instance, at the moment we are giving greater prominence to information about supermarkets, and freebies you can use to pass the time, than we normally would)
Of course we will keep you informed about every major change. And of course your feedback is still very important to us. Nevertheless I ask for your understanding if you are dissatisfied with one of our decisions or changes, and patience if we aren’t able to communicate instantly any changes as they often happen a a very fast pace.. I can assure you that we will always try to make decisions in the interest of the whole community or that this is by far our highest priority. Since the situation is completely new for us and we don’t have a master plan for something like this in our drawer, we will certainly make mistakes!
After considering back and forth, I have decided to leave the comments open here. We won’t have definitive (or sometimes any!) answer to your questions, and I know that can be frustrating. But we really do want to hear how you are doing, and how you feel we are doing, so please do comment below- but hopefully you can be patient if we don’t have all the answers Also please, this is not the right place to discuss the ins and outs of COVID-19 or government policy.
Temporary updates to posting/community rules
As mentioned in the post, we are going to make a lot more, quicker changes to rules to cover this uncertain period, and I will keep a log of the main ones here
Deals not allowed
Still allowed
Update 12 June
From Monday 15 June all in-store deals will be allowed again, regardless of the type of shop. To help people stay safe and well informed, @Dan_82 has pulled together this epic guide of different stores’ plans, and the measures they will have in place - hotukdeals.com/dis…282 - please comment in there if you have any more info on the stores include or any others.