[M.Acorn]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/02/groupon-investigated-office-fair-trading

[Jamie Lindsay]

hardly going to be the death of it

[wynne jones]

What will be the death of it is the competition offering better terms. I think JasonL mentioned 3 or 4 companies in the states that are already growing exponentially and taking market share from Groupon.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I think Groupon were the 1st so they did have 100% market share so it can only go down from there, my missus gets Groupon, Living Social, KGB and probably more  sent to her mobile so unless you are the advertiser then the market is still the same.

Shaun

[Kev Loomes]

Exactly Jamie.

I havent read the report but I did hear on the radio about them having complaints about beauty treatments or something - and subsequently groupon are going to look at their policies more closely. Yeh, of course they are...

I get the impression with these sort of companies that they are designed/set up with the view to gain as much money as possible, ride the storms and then run - either voluntarily or if forced to do so. By then they've made their millions.

They caught the market just at the right time, when people increasingly wanted something for nothing - and that was the clever part in its concept.

Just my opinion.

Kev

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I agree Kev they'll do a runner sooner later what they are giving is 'what people want' high discounts off prices which may or may not be artificially inflated to make the deal look better, that deal has always been around I remember going to a large market and they had a stage where a guy was selling towels he had a microphone on and gained an audience quite quickly started his price high and then brought it down by may be 75% who knows what they were selling the towels in Asda the week before.

As UK consumers we are too greedy we want the deal and want the best, Groupon works better for both parties in the US as they want/like/expect to be upsold to we (UK) take offence at it.

The downside to groupon is that consumers will expect to pay what they see on their but in the real world also 70% discounts aren't real wasn't that long ago when I worked at Servicemaster the owner was sending reminder letters out offering 5% off and getting a good response!

Shaun

PS I had to slim this post down abit so not to get confused with a Jim Neal post

[M.Acorn]

This is an update from yesterday.....http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/16/groupon-breaches-consumer-protection-laws?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487








The OFT found issues with practices including exaggerating savings, merchants becoming swamped and unable to deliver deals and only giving consumers 24 hours to make decisions on serious procedures such as laser eye surgery and cosmetic procedures.

[davep]

Yes there is a cc in the nw doing one last week, normal price for a lounge £65, temporaraly inflated to run a deal on.

[Colin Day]

If they made the prices more realistic for the customer and were less greedy, they could really go places and make Groupon work... Who knows, all this bad publicity bringing them into the limelight is maybe a cunning plan by them....

[cannon]

http://www.happli.co.uk/intro?redirectUrl=deal%2Fnewcastle%2Fspring-clean-carpets%26gclid%3DCNfwh7S78a4CFS4NtAodNWZOJg#

Heres another new provider (happli) this guys sold many hundreds of deals on groupon same deal 2 carpets, on groupon £26 Happli £39. Happli are running this one via adwords.

The usual price is different on both deals but i think most people arn't daft and realise usual prices are sometimes inflated to offer these "amazing deals"

[robert meldrum]

Gentlemen, Ladies and " others" Over thirty years ago when I started in this industry exactly the same advertising methods were being used. The deals were slightly different but they all amounted to the same thing.

Offer a fantastic Deal to GRAB ATTENTION with T and C's in small print ..............A very high percentage bought the offer on PRICE as they read it in the big print totally ignoring the smaller print which spelt out the ACTUAL price
.
Nothing has really changed ( in the marketing sense ) other than the vehicle used to get the advert out to the prospects.

What has changed to some extent is the HIGHER percentage of people looking for and buying DEALS !

[wynne jones]

http://www.happli.co.uk/intro?redirectUrl=deal%2Fnewcastle%2Fspring-clean-carpets%26gclid%3DCNfwh7S78a4CFS4NtAodNWZOJg#

Heres another new provider (happli) this guys sold many hundreds of deals on groupon same deal 2 carpets, on groupon £26 Happli £39. Happli are running this one via adwords.

The usual price is different on both deals but i think most people arn't daft and realise usual prices are sometimes inflated to offer these "amazing deals"

Some of these new providers might offer reasonable deals for us as an extra source of new business, although the more there are the more I think people will automatically go down that route.

[john rees]

Logic tells me that the likes of groupon know that the type of customer that use groupon will go back to groupon the next time they need the services or goods and not go back to a trader they've used there originally at full price! If they did groupon would soon be down the tubes as they would be not be making anything out of further sales after the initial sale.
                                        John