Sounds like Groupon is really beginning to feel the effects of their bad business. I won’t be sorry to see them go.
Read about it here:
Groupon Criticized For Literally Peddling Snake Oil - Yahoo! News
Man, I hope it doesn’t go away. I love Groupon and get some pretty good deals from it.
$1.00 for $10.00 worth of Dunkin Donuts?? Now that sounds like a deal for me, … and my kids, … who are pretty happy at the sight of donuts.
If it’s not a viable marketing service then I think it will wither away eventually. And if window cleaners want to work with it, then go ahead. I can’t think of any deal that is good enough to work for 25% of what I should be making. Maybe better to advertise on Craiglist and discount your pricing 50%. Just saying I have to wonder what kind of positive effect Groupon has on a window cleaning business. But as far as a consumer, … it’s great. Just remember that “buyer beware” thingy.
I don’t think it’s bad to pay full price for something. And as far as saving money goes, I’d rather just have a $3.00 off coupon to go eat some food at a good restaurant and know the business is actually making the money they should than to get $50 of food for $25 and know that company is only making $12.50 on it. The main reason the economy has been tanking so bad (in my humble opinion) is GREED. Everyone wants to pay nothing for something, it’s not just window cleaning. So, YOU as a consumer want $10 of donuts for $1, and if everyone wants the same, eventually everyone is going to go out of business. I say good riddance to Groupon.
Thanks Shawn, that made my day! 
Heh heh, You’re very welcome Jeremiah.
Well, I didn’t go ask them for $10 worth of donuts since that is the example. They offered it. I accepted. They didn’t have to offer it. They knew the deal with groupon and made a business decision. Maybe it gets a certain store more exposure. Maybe it helps get more traffic through the door. I personally don’t like to pay full price when I can pay, say, half price because it is offered to me. It’s not because I’m greedy, it’s because I don’t have a lot of money. And even if I did, I like good deals and always consider them before buying. If everyone goes out of business because they did bad Groupon deals then there will be no more Groupon(or advertising businesses). It’s the free market working. I shouldn’t have to feel bad about getting a great deal should I?? It doesn’t have anything to do with me.
The hope is that it generates more business down the road. Same for window cleaning although I don’t think Groupon is a vehicle to get the kind of customers that would be repeat ones especially at normal prices. But for some businesses it probably helps revenues in the future. At least that is what they are betting on. And if people are going out of business, it’s not my fault for buying what they are offering. It’s their fault for bad planning. So maybe they just shouldn’t use Groupon. I suppose businesses will find out pretty quickly whether it works for them or not but blaming the consumer is like blaming the mom who uses coupons for cereal. Is it her “greed” that will cause the collapse or the dubious decisions of the business at large??
I do understand there is a lot of greed as well. Greed has been around since humans have been around. There is something inherent about greed. So there will always be snake oil salesmen. And if Groupon is a snake oil salesman then truth be told, they will not survive the long run.
Agreed Tom, I’m not trying to make you a villain. I’m just saying that because of the greed in the world today, nobody wants to pay full price for everything. So then businesses offer lower prices or “deals” of all kinds, including the simple coupons to generate business because they worry they can’t sell their products at full price. The problem is when nobody values anything at full price. Obviously this hasn’t totally happened, since I heard Apple made $13,000,000,000 in just the last 3 months of 2011. That’s right, 13 BILLION, not million in the 4th quarter of 2011. I’d like a slice of that. But I don’t mind when Apple makes that kind of money, because for the most part they don’t ever discount their prices to get consumers. Rather Apple waits till they have a NEW product to charge high full prices for and then, THEY value the older product at a lesser price and lower the price permanently. Good business planning.
The problem Shawn, is that “full price” is relative. What determines “full price” is the consumer demand. How did you come up with what you charge for your services??
As far as groupon goes, I know of a couple of restaurant owners who love it. It has given them much needed exposure. The way groupon presents it to them, is that 25% basically covers your cost for the meal. This will allow the business owner to keep employees busy and the restaurant full, while introducing new customers to their restaurant. So, they are basically giving free samples with hopes of enticing future business from the customers.
I have debated on using a group on for my business, but I will do as many other window cleaners, and offer a gift certificate towards window cleaning… this way the groupon will not cover the entire service, and I will make additional money on the job. Make sense?
Yep Ryan, I know why it can work for some businesses. And while full price IS ''relative", it’s still a fact that Groupon is only helping you make 25% of YOUR “relative” FULL PRICE! That is a horrible way to spend your time in my opinion. If this attracted good customers that would later pay your full price and use your company exclusively it wouldn’t be as bad of a deal, but it doesn’t appear to.
Even for restaurants, if the 25% they make covers the expense of the meal, they’re still losing money on their employee’s pay, albeit not very much, poor restaurant servers get paid worse than school teachers.
There’s no sense in joining others in the race to the bottom.
I agree with you. I bought a groupon voucher for a meal at a restaurant. It was lovely, the staff were friendly, the food excellent, me and my wife had a lovely time, but I couldnt help feel bad at the back of my mind, as I knew how little they were making off us, and I felt like the quality we had received far exceeded what we paid. I made sure I gave them a decent tip, but still felt bad. I think you do have empathy for other small businesses when you own one yourself.
I grew up next to groupons CFO. That has nothing to do with the price of tea in china, but if you want to tee-pee his house I got the addy
it kills the market! people will wait for the next one. We are not selling cupcakes where margins can be made up once someone is in the doors. We are basically selling LABOR. So if you average $50 an hour gross cut that in half and then some.
Unlike many I actually have done a deal. Smaller companies sponsored the deal, one had 67 buys 20 windows exterior only 1 st floor only. Thought I was smart "[U][I]of course people will want to do the inside, of course people would at least do the upstairs exte [/I][/U] wrong and wrong, less than 10 people upgraded.
Living social called me yesterday they got mad at me when I told them that and why on earth would I rip myself off, he told me " plenty of people want to do business with us" replied great give them a call. Later last night he emails with sample deals one of the examples was this.
1,074 buys. The poor wc’r made 45k solo wc’r… 1,074!!! 20 homes a week all year!!! the deal was for 25 windows in/out.
So I text the owner he is about an hour north of me ask him how it went here is his reply “I will tell you the truth they destroyed my business. they did so much s@%$ to me I would never use them again”
Yes it can be leveraged very carefully but overall it’s not worth it.
That is the same cockroach who kept calling me yesterday, I told him to beat it! The reason they call window cleaners is the amount of profit they gain from us
Brian, not a knock on you… but I’ve also done a deal. Structured mine very carefully, and have done very well with it.
I am not gonna share all the tricks in the public forum, but I will and will also share a link in the private side.
I’m sure you have, but So Cal is animal all to it’s own. We have a wage sucking magnet 50 miles south of us. But please share love to see a different idea.
I mainly don’t care for them anymore because it puts in people’s mind the idea of the next great wc deal
Not to knock you either but was this your deal? 10 windows is smart but a lot of the deals companies have had so many wc’s do 25 in and out that they refuse a smaller amount.
because they know a person is desperate out there.
Savannah Now Daily Deals
it shows only one was bought?
The wage sucking magnet is 50 miles south of you 8 miles south of us
Maybe that was the one customer who scheduled a roof clean, soft wash, dryer vent cleaning, pressure washing, deck stain and seal, solar panel cleaning, rain gutter cleaning and rain flow installation and got the homes awnings cleaned as well
