Posts Tagged ‘Groupon’

Despite numerous speculations regarding the end of the never-ending row of online coupons, but investors continue to pump large sums into companies like LivingSocial and Plum District. The deal portals, which have specialized themselves in location-based group deals, especially wish to expand their unique selling points with the extended financial support in order to improve their position against competition. But the competition is still strong: the leader of the pack Groupon has introduced a new online-booking possibility with an appointment planner with its new Groupon Scheduler. Read the rest of this entry »

The big step was virtually confirmed for mid-September by insiders, but the market leader for online coupons is taking a step back. According to The Wall Street Journal, Groupon cancelled its “Roadshow” for investors and has further delayed its initial public offering (IPO).
The reason for this is, according to professionals, the worldwide financial crisis as well as the growing doubts of the business model. Although insiders believed Groupon to be capable of a multi-billion dollar IPO – even the company wanted to get 750 million from investors – the company is still making minuses. The latest reports claim a 50 percent loss in business. Read the rest of this entry »

Looks like the daily-deal market is losing significance to some of the major players in the market: shortly after Facebook’s announcement to suspend their daily-deal program, the rating community Yelp is following suit. Well, not quite as extreme, but 50% of the workforce has been cut back. Yelp said that it is going to be focusing on “good” deals instead of having no choice but to offer those with an “inherently declining quality.” Read the rest of this entry »

The speculation has been going on for weeks – now it’s official: the check-in/geolocation service Foursquare, which just began expanding its coupon market with the integration of deal offerings from five new partners, has now caught the big fish, Groupon. Starting immediately, Foursquare offers its users offerings from Groupon Now!, the special platform that offers real-time coupons. Read the rest of this entry »

Google is still a bit angry that it wasn’t about to buy out Groupon last year. Even Facebook has taken the opportunity to attack the ever-growing deal portal: Facebook Deals has officially launched in five US cities.
San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta – Facebook users in these cities can now get the latest deals on the “alpha”-version of the new service. Payment is accepted in the form of credit card or Facebook Credits. And of course, users can see which deals friends have taken advantage of, and there is a direct deal search for deals in your vicinity. Read the rest of this entry »

Deal giant Groupon is wearing the seven-league boots on its way to the stock market. The executive suite has been polished with gleaming, noble names, six million US Dollars have been acquired on the side as capital, and the supermarket chain General Mills has cut a deal…not a bad way to get going…
American media has knighted Groupon as a “Juggernaut”, a real player in the market. The company could easily reap in about a billion US Dollars from investors, and just about everyone is certain that the company will go public soon. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook, the social networking giant, already announced in November of last year the launch of Facebook Deals, which is the service’s answer to Groupon’s deal search. But does Facebook’s attempt at the couponing market really stand a chance against the already powerful Groupon? We think it does.
Facebook has a natural advantage to Groupon simply because just about everybody uses Facebook. Heck, even grandparents have caught on to social media. Facebook does an awful good job at putting everything in one place: photos, videos, messages, chat, and now local deals. People nowadays are looking for efficiency, and having everything that you need the internet for right on one website is quite attractive to consumers, as numbers have shown. Read the rest of this entry »

Groupon has allegedly raised its profit over 2200 percent within just one year, according to media reports. No surprise that other companies want to get a share of the pie: Qype has taken over cooledeals and started QypeDeals.com, Payback takes former cooledeals CEO under its wing to expand its own couponing market. And of course, all three of them are dying to call themselves the market leader.
Now one at a time: The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports based on an internal email sent to employees in January from Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason claiming there has been enormous growth in profit: from 33 million dollars in 2009 to 760 million at the end of 2010. According to the WSJ, Mason has not only made it his priority to remain the market leader for online deals in 2011, but also has the goal of becoming one of the leading tech-brands out there. This was not confirmed by Mason or a Groupon spokesman. Exact numbers aren’t really that important: it’s the incredible growth that’s important. Read the rest of this entry »

From the 23rd to the 25th of January, not only the grandees of the market showed up to the DLD (Digital Life Design) conference, sponsored by Burda publishing. Start-ups as well as investors also paid a visit in order to discuss their future plans and visions. The owners of the internet services are optimistic and agree: offline is out, online is becoming more and more mobile, and the social interactions will influence every aspect.

Three days filled to the rim with dissertations, discussions, and interviews. A lot was said, but we would like to provide a small summary of what we believe to be the most important points about the development of internet services, location based services (LBS), as well as social media: Read the rest of this entry »