The Cherry Planet Story
February 7th, 2009 by michael
Our Story
The humble beginnings of CherryPlanet.com are found in Small Town America. The local shops and businesses that line our streets give strength and diversity to our economy and culture. They are undoubtedly the backbone of America. But everyone has witnessed small family-owned businesses close their doors because they simply can’t compete with the well-funded advertising campaigns of large franchises.
I remember when I first moved to the rural New England town of Monson, MA. The charming Main Street was once a lovely attraction, but tragically, within a few years, many shops went out of business because they didn’t have the budget or the tools to reach new customers and to make the necessary profits to stay open.
Every business owner knows that advertising is costly even in the best of times. With this in mind, I thought about how I could help small businesses on low budgets. Ideally, these businesses needed free advertising and a way to attract customers. Having seen the success of Restaurant.com at promoting restaurants through discounted gift certificates and also how successful the Entertainment Book is, I came up with a plan. CherryPlanet.com extends similar services to a wide variety of businesses without charging them. This way, the savings are passed on to the customer in the form of high-value coupons, or savings certificates, that are for sale on CherryPlanet.com. These coupons can be worth four, five, even a hundred times their price. Better than the coupon book, customers are not limited to any one town and they pay only for the coupons they want.
The beauty of it is in the simplicity: Businesses get free advertising in exchange for high-value, exclusive deals that we pass on to the customers. Wins for both.
But our desire to help doesn’t stop there.
Our Higher Calling
Cherry Planet’s mission is to help our towns and communities, one coupon at time. We are committed to supporting small businesses because we believe they are the driving force behind our economy. We are committed to helping customers save money because everyone loves (and sometimes needs) a bargain. But above all, we are committed to helping charities because they are always in need of funds to continue the good works they do.
We were initially giving 10% or our profits to charity, but that didn’t seem like enough to make much of a difference and it wasn’t very exciting. Sometime God asks that we give above and beyond so we decided to give away 50% of our profits. That makes it a lot more fun because everybody can feel good about more than just saving money. Every single coupon helps someone in need.
It’s my heartfelt hope that you will be blessed in some way by CherryPlanet.com. It’s important to help each other out. That is essentially what makes CherryPlanet.com stand out from the crowd of other coupon sites—we are here to serve you—whether you are a business owner, a customer or a charity.
Sincerely,
Rachel Holman
President/Co-Founder
Cherry Planet LLC