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Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

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Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#41

Post by randall »

joeguilmette wrote: post #31
andrewljohnson wrote: post #29

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 whi…

The 10k is still $169, is in effect for all customers, and is advertised as such on our site. We wanted to boost T-Shirt sales so we raised shirt prices $5 and then gave everyone a $5 off coupon. It worked like a charm, and nothing is nefarious about that, is it?

Curiously, do you ever sell any shirts w/o a coupon? I mean literally, not figuratively, have you sold 1 w/o a coupon?

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#42

Post by joeguilmette »

randall wrote: post #41
joeguilmette wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 10k is still $169, is in effect for all customers, and is advertised as such on our site. We wanted to boost T-Shirt sales so we raised shirt prices $5 and then gave everyone a $5 off coupon. It worked like a charm, and nothing is nefarious about that, is it?

Curiously, do you ever sell any shirts w/o a coupon? I mean literally, not figuratively, have you sold 1 w/o a coupon?

The prices listed on everything is inflated $5, but we don't even bother 'redeeming' the coupons, the prices are just $5 lower in the computer. We really don't care, we just want people to feel like they're getting a deal and to think harder about looking at the shirts and buying one.

We also spent a lot of time and money making them cool, attractive and well made.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#45

Post by lefstathiou »

>>...so based on this standard we would get around $50-60 for each Groupon (the TOS precludes us from talking details, so I am not going to say what our margin was)....The cost: Groupon is expensive. If someone buys a Groupon and jumps without buying anything else, we lose about $20...

Well that settles what your margin is...

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#46

Post by thaumaturgy »

geekfactor wrote: post #34

That said, I feel that all of the Groupon horror stories floating around are from businesses that would be in trouble regardless. I would love to find out that your experience is more typical for Groupon customers, but it strikes me that there is a bit of selection bias at play here. The fact that you are posting this on HN, with 3 years/700+ karma here, suggests you might take a more analytical approach to assessing…

I think you're both right -- you in that joe is definitely an atypical small business owner, if my experience is anything to go by, but he's right in that a lot of the businesses that get crushed by Groupon aren't being run real well to begin with.

We do a lot of one-on-one B2B work. I really, truly, dearly love our clients. However, it's definitely true that most (nearly all) of them handle their business as though it's a 9-to-5 job. They come in, open up the shop, place orders, deal with whatever needs attention, and practice their trade for the day.

And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with that. They're happy, it's great all 'round. But, then they often get wind of the "next big thing", and they ask us how to get involved with that, without really thinking through whether or not it's the right fit for their business. They aren't maintaining the kind of customer tracking they should be, or follow-ups, or the kind of cross-promotions that joe described.

(We aren't yet, either, which is the only reason we haven't run a Groupon of our own. I'd love to, but we're not ready for it yet.)

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#47

Post by nbertram »

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 :)

Well that isn't a cool, almost double that haha -- I'm just happy they resist the urge to over work their instructors, however temping in this in-demand situation. Blue Sky's and safety first :)

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#48

Post by thaumaturgy »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #29

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 whi…

> I hope businesses don't do it to me more than I think.

If you pay close attention, you'll notice that this is exactly Safeway's entire business model.

Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon

#49

Post by Goladus »

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?

Eh, whatever. As a customer, that sort of thing doesn't bother me half as much as when products are cheapened in order to avoid price hikes. (filler ingredients, subtle shrinking of container sizes, etc.)
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