Are Groupon's Days Numbered?

Used Groupon for the first time last week. I never used it before because I couldn't be bothered to go through the site to checkout and buy a deal, then have to fucking print it out and take it to redeem it and all that shit, was too much of a hassle for me.

Then last week there was a Groupon for lasik from a local (reputable) eye center, normally they charge $2,500 per eye ($5k total) and so the Groupon was 50% off, so I'm getting both eyes done for half price. The deal was too good to pass up (also let me be clear, I'm already familiar with this eye center, it's not some fly-by-night operation, wouldn't risk my eyes over a discount just like that), plus there's lifetime enhancements at $150. So, if need be I'll have to be back for that but, besides that as long as they don't fuck up my eyes I will be a lifetime customer because I will have to go in each year for my annual eye exam.

In scenarios like that I can see how it can work for businesses but, groupons for restaurants and things like that where people are just searching for a new deal all the time and not actually going back, I can see what you all are saying about it not working and customers not going back, and being price shoppers etc.
 


nickCR said:
Yes, I'm well aware of UEIGA and the impact it had on the gaming industry.

The reason Poker Stars did so well is because of UEIGA, since this forced Party Poker out of the US market. Yes they do extremely well and are a profitable company (as far as I know). But what about the 100's of sites like FullTilt that simply fell off the face of the earth one day because they didn't have any money left to operate, let alone pay players? What would have happened if Poker Stars didn't step in and takeover that massive debt?

The point is that they mismanaged the funds and tons of others sites made the exact same mistake.
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Full Tilt's funds got frozen because they were stupid and had the majority of their money in accounts that were seized by the DOJ.


Pokerstars has been insanely profitable since... what? 1999? They were large even before the Moneymaker poker boom. 888 poker has been in operation forever, as well, and they have never had problems paying players. Same for PartyPoker and other sites that have been around for a while.

I think, in your first post I quoted, you didn't mean "major" poker sites - You meant scammy ass sites running on merge network skins and shit like that.
 
Yeah "major" probably wasn't the best word but there were certainly a handful of sites that failed due to the fact that they did exactly what groupon did, they spent money that wasn't theirs to spend (balances in the case of poker sites, business payments in the case of Groupon).

Also PokerStars didn't open until 2001 and they were not actually profitable until after money maker.. Mass advertising isn't cheap, not to mention the cost of doing business. Maybe your thinking all the money people deposited was profit, well it wasn't. Only the rake collected and tournment fees are profit.

The first site that opened was in 1998 named PlanetPoker and the second site was Paradise Poker in 1999.

Sorry UEIGA was 2006, time flies. Black Friday was when the DOJ took the $$$ and their domains. The Thursday after Black Friday the DOJ also hit another rather large group of poker sites.
 
nickCR said:
Yeah "major" probably wasn't the best word but there were certainly a handful of sites that failed due to the fact that they did exactly what groupon did, they spent money that wasn't theirs to spend (balances in the case of poker sites, business payments in the case of Groupon).

Also PokerStars didn't open until 2001 and they were not actually profitable until after money maker.. Yes they made lots of money but they were also spending it very quickly.

The site that opened in 1998 the first ever was PlanetPoker and the second site was Paradise Poker in 1999.
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Ah, I remember paradise lol.

You must have played regularly before UIEGA went down. :thumbsup:
 
MentalyDisturbd said:
Used Groupon for the first time last week. I never used it before because I couldn't be bothered to go through the site to checkout and buy a deal, then have to fucking print it out and take it to redeem it and all that shit, was too much of a hassle for me.

Then last week there was a Groupon for lasik from a local (reputable) eye center, normally they charge $2,500 per eye ($5k total) and so the Groupon was 50% off, so I'm getting both eyes done for half price. The deal was too good to pass up (also let me be clear, I'm already familiar with this eye center, it's not some fly-by-night operation, wouldn't risk my eyes over a discount just like that), plus there's lifetime enhancements at $150. So, if need be I'll have to be back for that but, besides that as long as they don't fuck up my eyes I will be a lifetime customer because I will have to go in each year for my annual eye exam.

In scenarios like that I can see how it can work for businesses but, groupons for restaurants and things like that where people are just searching for a new deal all the time and not actually going back, I can see what you all are saying about it not working and customers not going back, and being price shoppers etc.
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Another business model is a site like Restaurant.com who has less restrictions than Groupon and doesn't charge their customers for the deal itself.

What I don't understand is, if the restaurant doesn't pay for the deal, and they're not serving banners on their restaurant pages, how the hell do they make their money?
 
Fiver said:
Another business model is a site like Restaurant.com who has less restrictions than Groupon and doesn't charge their customers for the deal itself.

What I don't understand is, if the restaurant doesn't pay for the deal, and they're not serving banners on their restaurant pages, how the hell do they make their money?
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They are either selling the data or charging for their content to go on other sites, but they are certainly making money somewhere.

Still though, if I had a restaurant and I wanted to run a daily deal to get a couple hundred new customers I would offer something simple. As the owner I would be damn sure that my waiters are making every one of the customers experience as great as possible and try to make up on the cost in other areas such as drinks. Ideally you break even with everyone that comes in, even if it cost me $1000 to handle all those customers it would be better then running a magazine ad. If I can get even 15% of those customers to come back I'm much better off than having run a magazine ad.

If I don't run a daily deal, I would need to advertise somewhere. If I were to advertise in a magazine I would be paying a lot of money for the ad and have no idea what I'm truly getting out of the ad. So again I think a major problem is the businesses strategy of handling customers when they walk in the door and the mentality surrounding how to truly use the daily deal to their benefit.
 
Fiver said:
Another business model is a site like Restaurant.com who has less restrictions than Groupon and doesn't charge their customers for the deal itself.

What I don't understand is, if the restaurant doesn't pay for the deal, and they're not serving banners on their restaurant pages, how the hell do they make their money?
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Unless I'm missing something, I just went to restaurant.com and customers have to buy gift certificates. That must be how they make their money, that's what their affiliate program is about, affiliates get paid when a customer purchases a gift certificate.
 
MentalyDisturbd said:
Unless I'm missing something, I just went to restaurant.com and customers have to buy gift certificates. That must be how they make their money, that's what their affiliate program is about, affiliates get paid when a customer purchases a gift certificate.
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Restaurant.com is BAD ASS. There is some great deals on there, especially in Vegas. $2 for $20 worth of food at a nice place, not bad at all...inb4 peasant spotted
 
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