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Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

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21–30 of 34 posts

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#21
post #11

Separately from my on-topic reply: you should consider choosing a login name different than a famous person -- even if 'Steve Jobs' is your real name.

Why? Perhaps his name is Steve Jobs and he was born before the "famous" Steve Jobs. I'm only slightly kidding here.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#22
post #21
post #11

Separately from my on-topic reply: you should consider choosing a login name different than a famous person -- even if 'Steve Jobs' is your real name.

Why? Perhaps his name is Steve Jobs and he was born before the "famous" Steve Jobs. I'm only slightly kidding here.

If his name really is Steve Jobs, it would be wise to adopt the use of a middle initial, or at least make a remark acknowledging the coincidence in his profile 'about' page.

Otherwise, even if no one believes it is "the" Steve Jobs, people will have the impression he's a prankster playing off the famous Steve for attention or laughs. (That's what you usually get when someone adopts a famous person's name in a pseudonymous web forum.)

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#23
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Perhaps his name is Steve Jobs and he was born before the "famous" Steve Jobs. I'm only slightly kidding here.

If his name really is Steve Jobs, it would be wise to adopt the use of a middle initial, or at least make a remark acknowledging the coincidence in his profile 'about' page. Otherwise, even if no one believes it is "the" Steve Jobs, people will have the impression he's a prankster playing off the famous Steve for attention or laughs. (That's what you usually get when someone adopts a famous person's name in a pseudon…

Michael Bolton: Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks!

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#24
post #4

The idea that providing a deal or deep discount will somehow reveal your price points, making people demand product at that price is ludicrous. When a business structures a deal of this nature they are doing so with their bottom line in mind, and should know that whatever money they recoup from selling the deal will at least cover their costs. The main idea behind running these deals is to get new business in your do…

and should know that whatever money they recoup from selling the deal will at least cover their costs. I'm not sure if this is possible with Groupon. Between a discount good enough to be accepted and Groupon's cut taken out you'd have to be running an extremely high margin business to still cover costs.

Which is why WHO you have distribute your deal is so important. If you are a small business, do your research.

Again, I get what you are alluding to, but the fact of the matter is you are only speaking generally, this is possible, and in fact happens every day. Maybe not with Groupon per say, but there are others. If you are a small business, adility.com is your friend.

This model is designed to get mass exposure, but it is ultimately up to the business how massive the outcome will be.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is demonstrably false. The horror stories of businesses not being able to handle the huge flow of customers pretty much prove that many people would not "have bought anyways".

In the case of certain Deal Providers, the one's who do not give the business much control over the details of their deals, I agree. However, this is not the case with a site called adility.com. They allow the business to control their deals and cut them off when the business so chooses. You are making the assumption that these businesses only have a set number of regular customers and no idea how to interact with an…

Your response is all over the place and making a lot of assumptions about my beliefs that aren't true. I was only posting a one-off response to unfounded assertion that groupon buyers "would have bought anyway". Don't read too much into it.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#26
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Perhaps his name is Steve Jobs and he was born before the "famous" Steve Jobs. I'm only slightly kidding here.

If his name really is Steve Jobs, it would be wise to adopt the use of a middle initial, or at least make a remark acknowledging the coincidence in his profile 'about' page. Otherwise, even if no one believes it is "the" Steve Jobs, people will have the impression he's a prankster playing off the famous Steve for attention or laughs. (That's what you usually get when someone adopts a famous person's name in a pseudon…

Of course, we have an rms here, and the intelligent folk of HN know it's not the king of open source. I understand why it might be a prudent factor in making ones decision when registering, but I don't see why we should be tossing around advice to other people on choosing their HN handle.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#27
post #26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If his name really is Steve Jobs, it would be wise to adopt the use of a middle initial, or at least make a remark acknowledging the coincidence in his profile 'about' page. Otherwise, even if no one believes it is "the" Steve Jobs, people will have the impression he's a prankster playing off the famous Steve for attention or laughs. (That's what you usually get when someone adopts a famous person's name in a pseudon…

Of course, we have an rms here, and the intelligent folk of HN know it's not the king of open source. I understand why it might be a prudent factor in making ones decision when registering, but I don't see why we should be tossing around advice to other people on choosing their HN handle.

Of course, 'stevejobs' can ignore this advice. I'm just letting him know some people will take him less seriously if the name collision isn't resolved or explained. Usually, such pseudonyms are from pranksters.

I think Kevin Fischer's choice of the handle 'rms' for HN was unwise, as well. That he clarifies that he's not RMS on his profile mitigates the faux pas a little. But why squat on such a famous handle? If someone without the initials P.G. could beat PG to registration of the handle 'pg' on some new hacker/startup website, and then use that handle as their own, would doing so be a good idea?

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#28
I guess I really don't understand this part of what you wrote:

it may hurt businesses over the long term even if it provides some short term gains.

On their website for businesses, Groupon markets themselves as a sort of loss leader, hurting businesses in the short term, to help them in the long run. Are you thinking that businesses have such huge markups that they make a profit on 1/4 of their usual asking price, and this is letting people in on that secret?

Also, I'd like to know if you've worked with Groupon, if you own a business, or if this is conjecture on your part. I don't have a business, but from what I've read, I don't understand where you're coming from.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#29
I disagree. On that same reasoning, giving a free 30-day trial of a service would be detrimental to a business by anchoring the customer to a 'free' price point.

On the contrary, giving the customer a taste makes them come back for more. As long as your product is actually beneficial.

Re: Why Groupon hurts businesses and you should be careful

#30
What makes sense for one company may not make sense for every other. Groupon is great at what it does, so I don't see a point of being critical of something that isn't an expense unless the company opts into it. From my experience, Groupon tries to help you understand full well what you are getting in to.

The truth of the matter is that many business owners don't make the right decision 100% of the time, especially when it comes to new marketing opportunities and trends. Every brand is different, and it's every brand's responsibility to represent itself how it wants to be seen. Blaming Groupon for lowering the value of your brand is projecting your failure to maintain that on a company who offers a great service.

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