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Groupon Case Study

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1. Coupons have been around forever, so why has Groupon become successful?
I believe that Groupon has become successful for many different reasons. First of all, Groupon was the first to transport the traditional “Coupon clipping” to the online world. This opened many opportunities. It was something new, exciting to consumers that they hadn´t seen in this way. So Groupon had a first mover advantage even though they only connected already existing ideas and technologies in a new way. By being online Groupon could reach many, possibly millions, of people at once. This was a strong argument when Groupon talked to local merchants. As most of these merchants did not have an extensive marketing budget and were not necessarily familiar with new …show more content…

Making the offers timesensitive triggers a feeling in consumers that they might miss out on a chance that will not repeat itself if they don´t act now. Many even bought vouchers that they never redeemed, just not to miss out on an opportunity. In this sense Groupon is speaking to the risk-aversion of the majority of people. The thrill of seeing how much time is left on a coupon and how many others are acting as well, appeals to a person´s addictive behavior. We want to repeat the thrill of the bargain hunt. Groupon then made many moves to foster and expand its initial success. It expanded rapidly into more cities and later on even more countries. It fostered its connection with social media and the online world by setting up an affiliate marketing program that allowed bloggers and websites to earn commissions. This online referral was also expanded by giving consumers a direct incentive to refer Groupon by offering them a 10$ reward towards a future purchase. Groupon also heavily invested in paid search engine advertising and even created an ad that was shown during half time of the super bowl. So, to sum up, Groupon made sure that its existence spread as fast and as much as possible.

2. Local merchants have a mixed reaction about Groupon. What is your opinion- is it good for merchants or not?

In my opinion Groupon is not a ready-to-go solution to the problem of low marketing budgets of many local merchants. If Groupon is good

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