Groupon....

[rwcarpet]

If anyone want's to know about Groupon, they are featured on "60 Minutes" tonight. I'm not sure if it's about the company and it's rise on the stock market, or about the company and it's operation in general.

Set your DVR's.

 

[AshleyMckendree]

Groupon, Food Stamps for the middle class.

 

[rwcarpet]

Groupon, Food Stamps for the middle class.

I like that, Ashley!! Mention that in some advertising and it might attract a new breed of custys!

 

[Bee Busy]

Groupon, Food Stamps for the middle class.

 

[rwcarpet]

Well, let me get this right.......say you regularly charge $120.00 for cleaning 2 rooms and a hall. Now you offer Groupon discounts, and that drops the charge to $60.00 for that same work. Groupon will take about $30.00, leaving you with a grand total income of $30.00 for an original $120.00 job. After expenses, does that even get you minimum wage?

And to top it off, the report says that VERY few custys come back to you at full price, so you are stuck with a one-time lowballer, unlikely to buy any extras or upsells. Also, it mentioned that Groupon isn't making any money...in fact they are losing quite a bit. Their share price is steady on the stock market, but the SEC is investigating the CEO for over stating income, under estimating income on the lead up to their IPO.

Sounds like a type of Ponzi scheme. Something stinks in that company.

For those of you using Groupon, I hope it works for you and brings you many high-quality custys.

Like AshleyMckendree wrote:
Groupon, Food Stamps for the middle class.

 

[AshleyMckendree]

We ran a huge groupon last march ( 80% discount 4 rooms for $40 )
And sold 540. We up-sold like mad, did alot of add on rooms, but the vast majority were just doing it because it was so insanely cheap and would NEVER get there carpet cleaned at normal prices ( said so to my face) so those got splash and dashed in 20 minutes or less

 

[Brian R]

The idea of Groupon (for us) is to get to the 60% that never think of carpet cleaning. You're not discounting ALL your services...maybe a couple of rooms or 3 etc.

If you take into consideration your normal marketing costs for a customer and the discount that you may give to said customer... the intitial loss is not much more....or more at all.

These are guaranteed customers...Most of them middle class....Some or more WILL use you again IF you market to THEM correctly...Thanks Service Monster.

If you don't get repeats....Who's fault is it?





It's all about how much money you can keep in your pocket at the end of the day and year.

If done right...By a person willing to take a risk (this IS business)...It can be a great promotion.

If you're one of those guys who thinks the customer is there for YOU.....It's probably not FOR you.

 

[rwcarpet]

What I'll say, Brian, is that I don't feel it's fair to my many long time regular custys to "highly discount" cleaning to a few cheap asses. Should you offer those discounts to all your custys, just to be fair??

Just sayin'!

Go 49'ers! Should they win the SB, that trophy will come back here to sit in the Debartolo Corp offices in Boardman (Youngstown), Ohio. Denise Debartolo York, owner.