Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, those odds sound better than driving, thanks.
Isn't that only relevant if you skydive instead of driving? :)
My daily commute is 18k ft - ground, you wouldn't believe how much I spend on gas.
Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
101–108 of 108 posts
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is unrelated, but how many accidents have you had since you opened? Or, generally, is it a risky sport?
People say it's safer than driving, etc. In 26 years I know 0 people that have been injured or killed driving. In 3 years jumping I've seen some pretty gruesome stuff. Don't believe the stats, you're exposing your body to lots of kinetic energy and we're pretty fragile. No nightmares or PTSD, but, let's just say I've seen the helicopter land more than I'd like. The injury rate for first time jumpers doing tandems is…
That's very informative, thanks. It sounds like you'll be fine if you're cautious, though.
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#103Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#104I like this post. A lot of businesses complain about groupon saying they take a lot of money. But groupon isn't so much about making money in that sense. It's about advertising. I've seen businesses say they lost $1500 on a groupon deal or whatever, well that is the cost of advertising. It just varies from business to business. You do hope customers return though, and if you have a good business i don't see a problem with that. I rarely buy groupons, i only buy when i want to try a business out. I am a customer that is willing to return my business if your business is good to me.
I do understand there are a lot of bad customers too, but you just have to deal with it. Too bad groupon doesn't have a way to flag customers or at least have the right to refuse their groupon and just give them a refund.
Sounds like you used groupon the way it was supposed to be used. So good for you. Can you say what your business is? I'd like to try to skydive, so i'd be willing to support you. I live in arizona, so i know there are a lot of skydiving places here.
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps you're misunderstanding. Let's say there's a Groupon "$100 of food at ABC Restaurant for $50". You pay $50 for the deal to Groupon. Groupon takes half of that as their commission, leaving the restaurant with $25. Now the restaurant has to provide you with $100 of food for the $25 that Groupon gave them. If the cost of goods are 30%, that $100 in food costs them $30. They're only getting $25 for it. My slide r…
I'm not misunderstanding. You said there'd be a $5 loss on a $100 order. I said a $110 order would thus break even. It's irrelevant to look at all the fixed costs when considering incremental revenue. Those would have been spent regardless. The Posie's owner has only been in business less than 2 years and did not seem particularly business savvy. In agree that you probably gt adverse selection but also not relevant i…
Thanks for the clarification... I wasn't seeing where you came up with the $110 figure.
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm >The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000. http://www.uspa…
There are significant differences based on type of jump too. Most first timers do tandem jumps with an instructor on your back. Those jumps have a fatality rate around 1 in 140,000 where static line jumps are closer 1 in 50,000. And the injury (not fatality) rate for static line jumps is around 1 in 200.
And "injury" probably runs the gamut from sprained ankle to "oh look, my femur is poking through my pants"
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you guys have someone in house to run your groupons? This seems like a good service for a start up to offer.
It does, but we're talking about less and less revenue. Ho much of that 25% are you going to ask for?
Haha yes, you're certainly right. A start-up offering this service would have to do it on some sort of monthly subscription, say $20-30 a month. Though yes, I agree that this doesn't have nearly as much potential as groupon.
Re: Tell HN: Our experience with Groupon
#108How 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.
What do you mean by scary?
I can understand if you don't want to disclose exact figures on cannibalization, but can you provide any indication?