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Re:Groupon, which has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO,... by onlyrealcuzzo on Friday March 31, 2023 @03:07PM (#35391845)
In theory, Groupon was just supposed to be a good way to distribute coupons.

If you think coupons are a good business model, then Groupon makes sense as a distribution model.

If you don't, then I'm not sure why you would think Groupon would magically make coupons better.

Re:Groupon, which has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO,... by pessimizer on Friday March 31, 2023 @03:42PM (#35392397)
Coupons were just a means of identification; Groupon was supposed to be a way to organize bulk purchases by groups of people who didn't know each other. Investment turned it into a way to trick businesses into thinking that making their main product a loss leader was a wise choice.

Really the social networking version of a buyers' club.

Re:Groupon, which has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO,... by standardUser on Friday March 31, 2023 @03:11PM (#35391928)
I think that Groupons salespeople were getting massive concessions from the businesses they signed up, way beyond what a normal coupon or ad campaign might cost them. That's just my speculation based on the magnitude of a lot of the deals I used to see and the anger I heard from some of the businesses I talked to about it.