Perhaps in an effort to save their stock value that has been falling almost since they went public, Groupon has decided not to run their business based on politics anymore. They have recently started offering shooting sports & training coupons again in areas where there was strong interest from both consumers and businesses.
The funniest part of the article is from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Ownership who decried that Groupon didn’t put out a press release in advance of the change. Ladd declares such policy changes without notifying him the media to be “wrong” and “underhand[ed].”
Too little too late. I’d never buy a Groupon. From what I’ve read, its business model is tanking due to merchants not seeing a return on the investment and some taking a total bath on the Groupons they run.
The only firearms-related ones they had around here were “Half off Carry Permit Training! Only $100!” from places I know charge $100 regular price.
Complaints about Groupon from small business owners are legion. Their business practices are exploitative, and for their own sake, I hope firearms and shooting businesses opt out.
Most of the accounts I have read by small businesses who worked with Groupon and got screwed by the deal allowed themselves to get screwed by the deal. They didn’t set up a limit on the number of coupons sold, and they didn’t take into account what they could really afford in terms of their costs to provide services. Group coupon sites are basically like any other advertising expense, except a bit higher in regards to what you need to offer to get people in the door and also a bit lower in terms of the fact of the new customers still have to pay *something* to use your product. It’s up to the business to do the math on what will work for them in terms of the expenses.
As for bad deals on Groupon, that’s pretty common some businesses that weren’t willing to take the losses created fake “packages” of maybe throwing in one extra service or product, claiming a highly inflated value of that new package, and then marking it “down” for the Groupon. As an infrequent customer of some social coupon sites, I weighed the value of the deals accordingly. I don’t think I ever bought one that wasn’t for a discount on a restaurant, and almost all were to new-to-us joints. One of them became our favorite bbq joint for a couple of years, and another managed to get a little repeat business out of us. We never would have known those places were there otherwise.
In theory, social coupon sites are probably a better advertising deal for the buck for small, local businesses than something like a newspaper or radio ad. However, it’s up to the business owner to actually know what they can afford to spend in losses and to make sure that the customers have a good enough experience to warrant a return trip that will more than make up for the expense of getting them into the door the first time.