One way of doing this was by purchasing and rebranding existing similar deal-of-the-day services. Groupon continued its expansion by moving into international markets.

Groupon quickly expanded within the US and went from calling multiple vendors every day to ask for deals to accepting only one in eight vendors that wanted to be featured on the site. The first deal was an offer on pizza at half price from a restaurant on the first floor of the Groupon office in Chicago in October 2008.

This was a major point of encouragement for vendors to come onboard and offer different deals to draw in business. If this limit was reached, then Groupon would charge its fee otherwise it would not. When the business transitioned from ThePoint to Groupon, the same idea was used, meaning that a Groupon deal only went through if a certain number of people bought it. The website used a system called ‘the tipping point’ which meant that a donation would only be charged if a certain number of people contributed to the campaign. Mason’s project began as a campaign and fund raising website called. Mason ran the company as CEO till 2013, when he was asked to leave the company after a failure to meet targets and raise profitability.Īfter enjoying rapid success initially, the company went into a negative spiral and reported a fourth quarter loss of $9.8 million in 2011. Groupon was created by Andrew Mason with financial backing from a former employer, Eric Lefkofsky. The website is a daily deals provider that features gift certificates at a discount from different types of companies. The name is a play on the words group and coupon signifying the business of the company. Within a year, the website began serving more than 150 markets inside the United States and about a 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America. Groupon began operations in 2008 from Chicago and shortly following this from Boston, New York City and Toronto. In this article, we will look at 1) what is Groupon?, 2) products, 3) business model and key components, and 4) learning from Groupon’s success. It has remained a popular option for those looking to find great deals and offers. Groupon is a daily deals website operating globally.

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