Whats Groupon? Groupon is a website that has one regional deal a day. *Basically you go to the Groupon website and sign up with your name email address and zipcode and it will automatically send you one amazing deal every … Continue reading →
A few of us were talking about Groupon last month.
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But nobody has been getting back to us… it’s rather frustrating. Glad to see they got back to you.
He did say it took them 3 months to get back to him. I only contacted them a few weeks ago. It’s good to know that they will eventually get back to you. I’m also glad to know that they only take half your profits the first time.
Ah, I see… I thought I read 3 weeks. Thanks.
Been a long day… 
Its actually total crap as I have spoke to them. Basically unless you offer something really cheap and are willing to work for perhaps $2-$3 a pane good luck to you. In my case when I contacted them I was interested in offering window cleaning to gain a large amount of fast residential customers. However, in order to gain the best results you will need to offer a pretty nice incentive something along the lines of a discount of at least 40%/50% in order to entice people to purchase quickly in the few days you have for the listing.
What they will tell you once they get around to calling you is they themselves then also take 50% of the total profit made from your group on listing before sending you a check for the remaining amount. Me personally they can kiss my British backside before I give someone 50% of anything.
So basically offer exterior window cleaning (or whatever) for say $150 in the hope of gaining a large amount of people who will rush forward and purchase within x amount of days. Now in order to make it really work for you offer a nice discount to entice them into purchasing lets say… 50% discount if you happen to check out past advertisers. So now your down to offering window cleaning exteriors (or whatever) for $75 promoting the groupon discount plus lets assume you get 250 residential homes taking you up on the deal $18,750 nice profit NOPE Groupon will take 50% for the honor of listing you on their site so basically you will receive a check to do 250 exterior homes for $9,375 minus tax, workers pay, gas and all the other fun things we pay out for before making a profit.
In my option unless your crazy you would be mad to use Groupon
I will admit on the outside looking in groupon looks awesome especially if you happen to sell food, however, using it for gutter protection, window cleaning, pressure washing etc it is a total waste. Of course, I will admit it comes down to what your willing to work for too… maybe you’d be content working your balls off for well below your average to secure a bunch of homes, but keep in mind once you do you’ll be stuck in that cheap ass trap with those people for all time.
Stay away from them as I will guarantee you once they get around to calling you which they will in a time and actually explain how it works you have to be bleeding mad to do it.
We did book 11 jobs today ([B]at our normal prices[/B] ) from people that got the email, but called for other services. 1 day left well see what happens… So those 11 people completely circumvented Groupon and came directly to us…
Ill try anything… I think when all is said in done well probably get 25 people in total that went around Groupon and came to us… Ill keep you guys posted and break down the full ROI on the blog early next week…
Thanks Chris. I’d real interested to know the results.
Okay Chris however you were lucky they happen to call you for something else instead its the ones who will take you up on your cheap offer that you need to concern yourself with unless they happen to purchase $20,000 worth of other services from you at a nice profit 
Please keep us updated, I’m trying to contact groupon, along with some other coupon e-mail sites.
Chris:
How are you paying your employees on these jobs?
Average gutter cleaning pay, or their usual percentage of 37 and change?
Oh Martin I know… I was concerned we were going to be doing 100 gutter cleanings or something @ $37 a pop …
Ill be happy if we just hit 20 to make the deal and get into that higher tier.
Chris, any update on your results for this yet.
Will have them this week… Right now its looking like a complete break even after labor…etc…
Im thinking it will pay off in the long run, but who knows.
I think the idea of throwing out gutter cleaning as ‘bait’ might be good because it’s most likely one of the/ if [I]not[/I] the lowest ticket service we offer. Therefore less potential profit loss. And in Chris’ case, several shoppers went for regular priced services anyway, helping to strengthen profit potential.
We are waiting to get our deal with Groupon set. One of my customers brought them to me. The initial issue they had with us was that they had not done any work with window cleaning companies, so they were confused with how to proceed (that was the excuse they gave us for their delay) Like Chris, we are going to give it a try and see what happens.
