My Quote:
Groupon reaches tipping point for company that does no evil to purchase company that tricks it's customers... seems like a marriage made in heaven!
see wired article
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_hackingretail/
Interesting that these two are seemingly a good fit.
What does it mean?
I think it is just a fade.. how many mani-pedis can a girl buy at a discount... rather how many times can her local shop offers such incredible deals before they just can't afford to do it.
Novelty is a fleeting thing
Our consumers may jump once but not a thousand times.
How long before people turn this off and call it spam? It is spam... well email offers are something you want and spam is something you no longer want.
What is the way for Auto Dealers and Real Estate Professionals to get in on this sort of thing. My advice is to work with your traditional media, to get them to help you create an incredible deal. Look at the Conversion Driver industry like our partner who offers where you give a $250 gift card to a consumer to take a test drive that costs you only $25.00. ( see http://techmediamarketing.com/digitalmarketing-conversion-drivers.php?page=digitalmarketing )
Even Groupon is groaning under its own success... now they ship out a catalog of offers ... not just one. How special is that? My Costco has been doing that for years?
What is next... targeting on smartphones, Re-targeting (see http://torreyrussell.blogspot.com/2010/08/remarketing-101-follow-your-future.html ) ads on the Internet - that is ads that follow the consumer around.
Keeping ahead of this curve... so Groupon is "trick people into getting out of the house and doing the things they always wanted to do." As Andrew Mason, Groupon’s 30-year-old founder and CEO, sees it in a recent Wired Article. (see link above) Really? How long will the consumer allow themselves to be "Tricked"? Or is the price so low this ONE TIME that they feel compelled to buy it... just like Costco as you walk by that new fangled gadget that is priced almost too low to believe. How many times will this work for a retailer?
Think this is very fadish.
My advice is to focus on your own ability to be found locally, don't give away your inventory/listings to 3rd party sites that will use your inventory to steal your front page position on Google. (see: http://torreyrussell.blogspot.com/2010/08/3rd-party-sites-are-stealing-your-front.html )
Try Google's new BOOST service on their Places
(see http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1040967 )
"With Google Boost, simply set up a monthly budget for your ad, and we’ll determine what search keywords trigger your ad based on the categories that you select. You’ll only pay for the clicks that your ad actually receives."
This of course melds with Groupon I guess so Googlepon will probably add permission based email marketing to PUSH deals to consumers... OK I get that now.
Still 6 billion is a lot for a 2 year old company.
That is since its inception (Groupon) 2 years ago, an increase of value of 20 million dollars per day - WOW.
