Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#21

Post by brianr » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:13 PM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #4

nbertram wrote: post #3

Interesting to hear that you aren't the only DZ to experience this. hehe thanks for Groupon my final AFF jumps are harder to schedule at my local DZ (MB, Canada) due to all the Tandems generated from Groupon ;p

Yea we actually lost a few funjumpers because we've been so busy. Used to send 1 flight an hour with 3 tandems with 5-8 solo jumpers. Now we send 2 flights an hour with 5-6 tandems on each flight and around 2-3 funjumpers... :/ It's not always that bad but it is more often than not. How much did you pay for AFF? You're going to be pretty sad when you hear that we do AFF for $999 :)

AFF for $999, eh? Which DZ are you / where are you based?

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#22

Post by siganakis » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:21 PM UTC

I'm clearly in the minority, but I'm not sure I would really be that attracted discounted sky-diving. If I ever try it, I want it to be with some delta force or SAS guy who is VERY well paid.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#23

Post by tatsuke95 » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:23 PM UTC

Thanks for writing this up. Not much positive coming from the Groupon front of late. That said:

> In advance of the Groupon we raised our 10k price to $169 so that the discount percentage was higher.

I think most people assumed this was happening, but to have it said in plain English is a bit disturbing. It's deliberately deceiving the customer, and is accepted as a strategy. Is that sustainable?

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#24

Post by tedjdziuba » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:23 PM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #14

pitdesi wrote: post #6

Thanks for this... really interesting. I just went skydiving for the first time last week and used a Groupon. It was fun but I wasn't immediately hooked and wanting to go again. I paid $109 for a 15k jump that is normally $209. I bought it about a year ago (Used it because Groupon was about to expire). The facility was so packed that I had to reserve my time far in advance. (They sold 4,500 groupons the day I bought)…

All instructors (and everyone else, except front end staff) are paid per unit - industry wide. Depending on aircraft it generally costs around $12-20 per seat in the plane. The equipment costs around $15k to buy new is fairly expensive to maintain. Instructors earn anywhere from $25-85 per jump, depending on facility, the weight of the student and whether or not the student bought a handcam video. Also, it generally…

Protip: if it floats, flies, or fucks, rent it.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#25

Post by joeguilmette » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:24 PM UTC

riams wrote: post #20

How high was cannibalization, i.e. existing customers using the Groupon deal instead of paying full price?

Disturbingly high. Repeat customers were also kind of scary.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#26

Post by joeguilmette » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:27 PM UTC

siganakis wrote: post #22

I'm clearly in the minority, but I'm not sure I would really be that attracted discounted sky-diving. If I ever try it, I want it to be with some delta force or SAS guy who is VERY well paid.

They're all pretty similar. In fact, the lower price ones are probably safer because they've been doing it longer and have built an economy of scale. The small time guys doing beach jumps out of Cessna for $250 from 11k certainly aren't supertrained SAS guys :)

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#27

Post by RobIsIT » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:28 PM UTC

Groupon (and their clones) have created a brand new style of sales. This new sales niche hasn't been properly researched, tested or evaluated. Groupon simply went full out, launched and is learning as they go.

I would be very interested in a category-by-category analysis of the effect that Groupons have.

With this data, we could figure out what types of businesses and specifically what types of deals work best for those businesses. Then, we could expand on this knowledge by creating new products, services and perhaps even entire businesses around this model.

Until we have this data and these conclusions, stories like this are anecdotal and even entertaining, but they don't represent an understanding of this new niche.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#28

Post by joeguilmette » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:29 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #23

Thanks for writing this up. Not much positive coming from the Groupon front of late. That said: > In advance of the Groupon we raised our 10k price to $169 so that the discount percentage was higher. I think most people assumed this was happening, but to have it said in plain English is a bit disturbing. It's deliberately deceiving the customer, and is accepted as a strategy. Is that sustainable?

It's not deliberately deceiving anyone. We raised our price and then offered a discount. The price was raised for all customers. It is entirely different than forcing Groupon customers to order from a separate menu with similar products and higher prices, or funneling them through a website with an online store with the same products and higher prices. We just modified our pricing in advance of changing our business plan.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#29

Post by andrewljohnson » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:30 PM UTC

I am glad it worked out for you, but I find the practice of raising prices so you can claim a discount to be abhorrent - I hope businesses don't do it to me more than I think. This is the same scam that happens in every mall jewelry store.

I guess the big question is did you make the price increase "to all customers" permanent, or is that part of the Groupon song and dance? If you just do it during Groupons, then while it may work, it's deceptive. You're not helping any customer in any way by perpetrating your "discount." It might be good for the bottom line, but the tactic is all about fleecing the sheep.

This is another business tale that I'll chalk up as an argument against Groupon. At least it tells me I need to get dirty to use Groupon effectively. I think Rocky over at TechCrunch is spot on - Groupon isn't run by evil people, but it's set up to be gray and shady by nature. It's Conway's Law brought to life.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#30

Post by r00fus » Tue, Jun 14, 2011, 10:30 PM UTC

TamDenholm wrote: post #5

It seems the direct result of groupon can cripple you, much like a the slashdot/digg/reddit/HN effect for a website, but if you know how to harness the instant surge and spread it around to cross sell other products and peripheral promotions, you can ride the wave successfully.

As mentioned in the write-up, Skydiving is much different than, say, fast food, in that the groupon customer must schedule the jump (scheduled fast food ... isn't).

All of which probably means that Groupon (at least the daily version) isn't that good for business that can't scale appropriately (ie, restaurants) or schedule the delivery of service/goods.

Once the timed-deal market really matures, we'll likely see weekly, daily, and even multi-daily (Amazon goldbox?) coupons by various Groupon-like entities.