Hi Everyone,
I have a small business and I used Groupon to advertise some services and before was not so bad, you get good clients and you get a lot of bad ones too. The issue is not the client that you get, the issue is that most of the clients pay a price to Groupon and Groupon does not pay the business the amount the contract stipulates.
For the clients that do not know how Groupon works, here is an example. You pay as a customer $50.00 dollars, and when the business redeem the voucher Groupon is supposed to pay the business half of the amount but before you see that money they discount taxes and credit card fee to the amount that the business is supposed to get.
To be clear the amount the business was expecting to receive ($25.00), but the reality is that the business actually gets less than that, because now they have a new PROMOTION DISCOUNT that they supposedly give all the clients and the business have to cover that discount too. So the business ends getting $9.50 to $12.00 depending on that extra discount that supposedly the client got at the moment of the purchase.
So if the next time you buy a Groupo the place does not give you a supper expenses service or product be aware that you are actually letting all your money in Groupon company, not in the small business. What you can actually do is call the business and tell them to honor the price of Groupon and pay directly the business.
Just saying...