YOU ARE INTERESTED, GO TO GROUPON PLEASE AND.....!
Groupon in my personal opinion is one of the biggest success stories of recent times of Internet. With 20 million subscribers in 29 countries of Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia, Groupon has inspired hundreds of clones (Living Social* just to make an example) and despite dozens of initial entries about possible acquisitions by Yahoo and eBay, Groupon has always tried to maintain its independence; ok but now Google is enter in the game, and Google is Google! “Nothing compares to Google”, mention a famous song of Sinead O’Connor.
The acquisition, if true, brings enormous benefits to Google, giving him a wonderful opportunity to merge Groupon with Google Place, its local business directory. On the other hand, under the protective wing of Google, for Groupon will be much easier to dismiss all those competing services.
But what is the business model of Groupon?
The concept is to purchase things all at once to tick a price reduced. These then are offered to registered users that can order them for a period of 24 hours. When you registered on the website you will choose the city, email notice for the offers in your area, choose your product or service (food, health, beauty, theatre, museum), and buy with your credit card if you find something for you. The purchase will be perfected only when we reached the minimum numbers of users for that particular deal, only then the system will charged on your credit card, and an email will be sent to show you the link where print the coupon. This coupon has usually a validity of 6 months.
Wow, the idea is simple but genial. That’s the reason probably because Google desires to buy all the packet, and because Groupon is almost every everywhere in the world (in Italy, just to make an example where I live, the company has recently buy CITYDEAL***, our leader and previous inventor of the market).
This kind of services born with the vacations, when at the end of the millennium, aggressive tour operators (always on line) organized tours, holidays and trips at cheap costs for people that, maybe alone, was interested to take part of the “adventure”. If the minimum number was reached, the holiday can start, otherwise no charge for you; just the disappointment.
In my opinion service like Groupon is a wonderful way to explore the possibility of internet, make a funny surprise to someone, share some moments with new people that have has the same desire that you, and generate continue advertising within the website, with your contacts and posting news on social network (Facebook**** is an example).
It is safe also to say Groupon, for the retailer, is a powerful way to get customers in their door. Along with other marketing trends such as mobile marketing, and social media retailer don’t have to spend or throw money at advertising hoping something will work that produces even the smallest return on your investment.
Groupon uses collective buying and the power of social media to drive customers by the hundreds or in some cases thousands of new customers overnight retailer’s doors; also because by requiring a minimum number of customers to make the offer active, customers get a great deal and retailers will get an avalanche of new business.
And, as in the fairy-tale, “everybody would live happy and glad”.
But we are not in a fairy-tale, that’s real life.
Thanks,
Lorenzo
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Sources: * http://livingsocial.com/
** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xgPtqT0XBY
*** http://www.groupon.it/sites/www.citydeal.it/lp/cinema/index.php?CID=IT_SEM_2_0_0_0
**** http://www.facebook.com/#!/groupon
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The news is floating on the net for several days but still has not been made official. It seems that Google is about to buy the portal online discounts Groupon (link groupon sito). Groupon is a start-up who burned the stages since it was founded in 2008 (its revenues amounted to $ 50 million per month) and is valued 5.3 billion. According to the agreement being signed, the giant Mountain Wiew would be willing to pay more 700 million if results were in line with their expectations, for a total of 6 billion dollars.
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