Hey everyone,
You've asked how Slickdeals works: who owns us, how deals are picked, and what makes the Frontpage.
Here are straightforward answers from the team, no spin. If you want more detail, we'll keep updating this page.
Who owns Slickdeals?
Slickdeals has been privately owned since it was founded in 1999 by Van Trac. Since 2012, the company has navigated multiple stages of growth and evolution with the support of investors and owners, including Warburg Pincus and Goldman Sachs. Today, we're still independently operated under private ownership.
Do investors have any say in what merchants you have on your site?
No, none. Our investors have input on overall financial goals such as growth targets, but they don't make any decisions about what merchants or deals appear on Slickdeals. What you see on the site is entirely driven by our internal team and, most importantly, by our community.
Do merchants send you deals to post for them?
We do have a program that lets merchants submit deals for review by our Deal Specialists. It's never pay-to-play. Deal Specialists review every submission and only post offers that meet community standards on price and quality.
Here's how it works: our Deal Specialists review every submission. They'll check if that product (or a similar one) has been posted before and how our members responded. If the data shows members liked it at a certain price but not at another, they'll actually go back to the merchant and ask if they can lower the price. If the merchant can't, we usually pass.
If history shows our members just aren't interested in that product at all, we'll also pass.
Bottom line: we only post something if the team genuinely believes it's a good deal.
If you work with a merchant, does that mean they're guaranteed to go Front Page?
Nope. Front Page is earned, not bought. A deal's popularity (meaning community votes, engagement, and value) determines whether it makes it there, not whether we have a working relationship with the merchant.
What is the difference between a Deal Specialist and a Deal Hunter?
Deal Specialists review deals submitted to us, while Deal Hunters go out and independently find deals across the web.
Why do I see the same merchant often? Can you stop?
We know seeing the same merchant can get old. We feature them when the data shows a strong value for members. If you've had a bad experience, add a comment; your feedback affects what we surface.
We've actually stopped working with certain merchants in the past because of member feedback. Your experiences and opinions directly shape who we feature, so if you're tired of seeing a certain name, let us know why. We do pay attention.
Do you ever bump down a deal because a merchant isn't working with you?
Absolutely not.
Do mods remove posts that criticize merchants you work with?
We actually welcome and encourage honest feedback, even when it's negative. That's part of what makes Slickdeals different: members can speak freely about their experiences.
What we do remove are personal attacks and shills.
- ✅ "This merchant never ships on time." — Fair feedback
- ❌ "OP is an idiot" — Harassment, removed
Criticism of a product or merchant = fine. Harassment = not fine.
Why work with merchants at all?
Just like any other business, we've got bills to pay. We have about 250 employees, servers, infrastructure, and everything else that keeps Slickdeals running.
Some sites throw pop-ups and autoplay ads at you, or put deals behind paywalls. We've always wanted Slickdeals to stay free, open, and user-driven, so working with merchants in specific, limited ways helps make that possible without ruining your browsing experience.
Do staff have secret accounts to influence votes/comments?
Absolutely not. That's a strict no-go.
Our staff are Slickdeals users too and do organically engage with the community. For example, I like and comment on deals with my staff account but it's on items i've actually purchased or know that it's a good value. Whatever we do is labeled Staff, so it's all in the open.
Some staff accounts are used only for testing. For example, a staff account may be used to make sure things display correctly on the site, but those accounts are not used to post, vote, or engage in discussions. Most testing happens in a closed environment anyway, not on the live site.
Ok, what about bots then?
We have Slickdeals Scout. It scans retailers for price drops and posts them. It doesn't vote, comment, or influence rankings.
Why was my political post removed?
We get this one a lot. Our moderators aren't biased toward any political side, they're just enforcing the same rule across the board: Slickdeals isn't a political platform.
We remove political posts because they almost always turn into arguments and derail deal discussions. Speaking from experience (many of us were community members before being staff), it's tough to delete posts you might personally agree with, but it's part of keeping the space on-topic and welcoming.
Why so many Amazon deals?
Yes, you're right, a lot of Amazon deals are posted on our site by both community members and staff. Given the sheer volume of products and promotions Amazon runs, plus how popular they are with our community, it's no surprise those deals make up a big share of our content.
That said, we're always open to more variety. If you're shopping and come across an amazing deal from a merchant or store and you want to share it with our members, please post it!! And if there are merchants or types of products you'd like to see more often, let us know.
You can email us at
[email protected] (yes, we know, old school ) or post in the Help Me Find a Deal forum if you're looking for something specific.
Do you allow self-promotion?
We draw a hard line between sharing an organically found deal and marketing on behalf of a company. If something feels like an ad instead of a contribution, it's removed. If we find proof that the merchant is posting for themselves, it's removed. If we find out a merchant is voting for themselves or using various accounts to vote for themselves, that account is typically banned and if this has been an ongoing issue with a particular merchant, if they continue despite warnings to stop, they may be banned from being posted on our site.
Thanks
Thanks for sticking with us through all that. And honestly, for caring enough to ask these questions in the first place. Slickdeals has always been about the people who make the community what it is: you all. The feedback, the deal-hunting, the call-outs when we miss something are what keep this place sharp and worth visiting.
We're not perfect, but we're listening. The more open we can be about how things work behind the scenes, the better this community gets for everyone.
If there's something we didn't cover here (or something you think we should talk about next time), don't be shy. Drop it in the forums or email
[email protected]. We'll keep the conversation going.
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138 Comments
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I live more out in the country. It start around 7 years ago with a raccoon and a couple babies coming to our house trying to eat the bird food. We started throwing out tortillas. They decided they liked that more than bird food so started coming up our porch for that.
So looong story short, we established a kind of weird critter relationship lol. So Bert (we thought she was a boy at first and the first year she lost her front leg somehow but is still the best running and climber of the bunch) brought her babies. Those babies had babies and brought them. Rinse, repeat. Now every night we have at least 15 raccoons, possums and skunks that come and wait at the backdoor for dinner. They let us hand feed them, pet them, they'll stand on their hind legs and reach out for food. (well, not the skunks but they don't run away or spray when we are out there) They all get along, we even had a coyote come and eat with them for awhile. It moved on but the rest of the critters stayed. Some have names, like Bert, Wally, Grabass, Coal, Baby Coal, Sam and Terri, etc. We go through 100 pounds of dog food per week, so I don't think I can ever afford to retire
She drove that thing for almost 3 years and traded it in for thousands more than what we paid for it.
She drove that thing for almost 3 years and traded it in for thousands more than what we paid for it.
As for me, one of my teachers told me to try out Slickdeals, I'm sure he first heard about it because of the HP Tablet as well. Don't think either of us expected me to work here now lol.
Anything from Alibaba makes me question who is influencing this site. Far too many bad experiences with scammers.
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I have wandered many times how a deal gets on front page with sometimes as little as one vote .
many times i have vote a deal down and it does not add the vote, same has happened with up votes.
I do not trust slickdeals anymore and i joined in 2005 things have went downhill
With SD here, there seems to be different moderators on duty, and at least one rewrites deal posts, the body not the subject, into robo cookie cutter language removing the pros and cons and all unique effort of the original poster, the excitement of finding the deal, so all that is left to be read is a minimal shill-looking thoughtless text. Yes, it is still the deal I found, but now I am embarrassed to have my user name associated with the post, and so this has kept me skittish from posting many deals.
All your touchpads belongs to me
Yeah. I 'member?
Tony the Tigrape
With SD here, there seems to be different moderators on duty, and at least one rewrites deal posts, the body not the subject, into robo cookie cutter language removing the pros and cons and all unique effort of the original poster, the excitement of finding the deal, so all that is left to be read is a minimal shill-looking thoughtless text. Yes, it is still the deal I found, but now I am embarrassed to have my user name associated with the post, and so this has kept me skittish from posting many deals.
For what it's worth, while the deal editors do have a standardized format they use for they writeups when they are promoting a deal to the front page we recognize that a lot of posters put a lot of work into their posts there's often valuable information in the op itself that is not included in the writeup for various reasons, and as such we do leave the original post accessible, although it's not as visible in the newer versions of the site as it is in classic. In many views you need to expand a link but we do try to make sure it is there.
Users should assume that every staff post is a paid deal. If it wasn't, there would be no need for the blanket disclaimer.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank mrmochi
I tried couple of times to point out that a post is a shill post and was fined by points. SD wants you to privately report someone as shill and control all the narrative about who is removed and who is not.
When SDers with 20-year tenure on SD report someone been a shill, it's not out of vengence or spite. It is because there are multiple strong inidicators that allude to someone being a shill:
- A deal being mediocre at best
- A absolutely random, no-brand item that rarely appears on SD
- A randrom / unknown / new seller on commercial platforms like Amazon or Ebay
- An absence of seller's feedback or very low feedback score. Another variation, is a feedback that's very old
- A new poster with low number of posts
SD requires to report those privately to Admins and never follows up on these posts. Or follows up stating: we will review your submission and act accordingly. This is very reassuring (/s) of course.Time for this post to be removed 4...3...2...?
If you call someone a shill who is an obvious shill YOU will get the ban hammer.
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