Just two and a half years ago, Yelp acquired the food delivery site and app Eat24, which seemed like a complementary business at the time. Now GrubHub is buying the site for $287.5 million — a little more than double what Yelp paid for it in 2015 — while the two companies will keep linking to each other and referring customers back and forth. [More]
groupon
Groupon Gets A Great Deal On Rival Site LivingSocial
By 10.27.16
Do you remember the daily deal bubble of just a few years ago? Groupon boomed and had a spectactular public stock offering, and even companies like Amazon and PayPal opened their own copycat sites. Consumers largely lost interest in deals sites as a category, and so did investors, but category leaders Groupon and LivingSocial managed to survive. Now Groupon has acquired its smaller rival for an undisclosed amount, but probably at least 80% off its peak valuation. [More]
Groupon Still Exists, Gets $250M Investment From Comcast
By 4.4.16
Last fall, things didn’t look good for Groupon — the deal site that three of your friends wouldn’t shut up about in 2011. Its stock price had sunk to a new low as it fired more than 1,000 employees and closed operations in six countries and Puerto Rico. But the company got some good news today in the form of a $250 million investment/partnership with Comcast. [More]
IBM Lawsuit Accuses Groupon Of Infringing On Its Patents, Including One For Prodigy
By 3.3.16
Do you remember Prodigy, the online service that had many a mid-1990s user surfing the Internet, in the early days of the World Wide Web? IBM sure does, considering it holds patents for that dinosaur of the technological age, and is accusing Groupon of infringing on two patents that grew out of Prodigy, as well as a few others, in a new lawsuit. [More]
Which Stores Will Have The Best Black Friday Deals?
By 11.17.15
How do you quantify what the “best” deals are, on Black Friday or any other day of the year? The most important factor should be whether the retailer sells stuff that you actually want, of course, and the value that those items provide for the money. Yet the sport of deal-hunting is all about the discounts, and WalletHub decided to compile raw percentages to figure out the best places to shop after Thanksgiving this year. [More]
Groupon Slashing 1,100 Jobs, Promises To “Do More With Less”
By 9.22.15
When Groupon went public in Nov. 2011, its stock was selling for more than $20/share. With the startup shine gone and so many other companies offering local deals, Groupon shares now trade for around $4 each. In an attempt to breathe new life into the still-young company, it announced today that it will be cutting around a tenth of its workforce and closing up shop in six countries and Puerto Rico. [More]
Groupon Launches Online Food Ordering Service To Compete With Seamless, GrubHub
By 7.30.15
There’s a new player in the arena of online food ordering: Groupon launched its own online food service for customers who want to either pick up their chow or have it delivered — but it’s only in Chicago for now. Eventually, as the service expands, Seamless and GrubHub (which are owned by the same company) could have a rival in the competition to fill customers’ empty bellies with the touch of a button. [More]
Groupon Australia Sold Boxes Of Counterfeit Durex Condoms
By 4.23.15 — Updated: 12.9.16
Overall, Groupon’s transition from a company that sells discount vouchers to a company that sells discount merchandise has gone pretty well. Yet some news from Australia caught our attention when we learned that Groupon in that country sold counterfeit condoms on their website. Now the Australian government is alerting consumers who purchased those condoms that they should probably not use them. [More]
Groupon Provides Refund For “Secretly Mexican” Samsung TV
By 10.9.14
You may remember reader Rob, whose story we featured here a few weeks ago. Rob bought a smart TV from Groupon Goods. and then ended up plunged in a bizarre chain of events involving an imaginary warranty, four different countries, and some very odd claims about how Samsung products have no warranty when they’re sold online. We have good news to report: He’s been issued a refund. By Groupon. [More]
Samsung Says My New TV From Groupon Is Secretly Mexican
By 9.19.14
Rob bought a TV from Groupon Goods, and found himself in a weird dilemma where Groupon promised that his new TV would have a manufacturer’s warranty. He had no reason not to believe them until something actually went wrong with the TV. Samsung told him a few different things: that they don’t warranty items bought online, or that his television came from Mexico or Canada. What? [More]
Groupon Now Offering Time-Based Restaurant Deals That Require A Reservation
By 9.3.14
Part of the hassle Groupon customers traditionally have faced is presenting that printed or mobile deal voucher to redeem it when the time comes. And that time wasn’t always ideal for businesses, either, with owners complaining of floods of customers wielding vouchers and overwhelming them. In an attempt to allay both stressful situations, Groupon’s new foray into the deal world for restaurants that take reservations comes with a time limit, with no voucher presentation involved. [More]
Watch Out For Groupons With “Reservation Required”
By 6.20.14
Reader Aaron is annoyed at Groupon. He bought a voucher for a local restaurant: a sushi place, to be exact, but the type of business doesn’t matter all that much. What does matter is that he paid for a voucher, which required that he make a reservation at the restaurant through Groupon’s app. This wouldn’t be a problem if he could get a reservation. [More]
Groupon Joins The Bulk-Buying Ranks With Newly Launched Groupon Basics
By 5.1.14
Once upon a time, if consumers wanted to satisfy their bulk-shopping needs they had to drive to the warehouse store, push a heavy cart from aisle to aisle, wait in line to pay and then drive home. Not anymore. Now with just a click of the mouse you can order a 20-pack of paper towels from online retailers like Amazon and have it delivered to your front door. Well, you can add yet another online retailer to the list of companies hoping to give traditional bulk retailers a run for their money. [More]
Groupon’s “Salebration” Leads To Confused, Voucherless Customers
By 3.28.14
Groupon is running a shady deal, readers told us. They recently sent a 20% off coupon code to customers, promising 20% off a local deal. Neat. Jenny nabbed three $12 vouchers for a local store, spending only $18. Yet her 20% coupon only got her a discount of $1.20. She was disappointed that it was only taking ten percent off, and complained to Groupon and to us. The deal, it turns out, wasn’t shady at all. [More]
This FTD Flower Arrangement Says, “My Love For You Is Gnarled And Dessicated”
By 2.20.14
John’s husband ordered flowers for him for Valentine’s Day, using a Groupon voucher for FTD.com. That’s what a loving but frugal spouse does, right? Only what showed up on John’s doorstep were really dead. No, not buds that hadn’t opened yet. [More]
Groupon On “President” Hamilton: Gotcha! We Did That On Purpose, Haha!
By 2.18.14
It was fun while we lasted: We had a sneaking suspicion there’s no way Groupon could be so ridiculously idiotic as to think that Alexander Hamilton was ever a U.S. president, and it turns out we were right. The company admitted that the whole Presidents Day deal was a bid for attention. Well, you got it. [via Chicago Tribune with autoplay video] [More]
Groupon Self-Service Lets Companies Design Their Own Deals
By 2.10.14
If you could design an entire daily deal campaign for your company without talking to any pesky salespeople, would you? Most people prefer to minimize the number of pesky salespeople in their lives, which is why Groupon’s new self-service deal tool might be a great idea for even small businesses than the ones that Groupon usually works with. [More]
Overwhelmed Repair Shop Subcontracts Out Groupon Customers, Disaster Ensues
By 1.14.14
Smartphone repairs can get quite pricey, so shoppers in Orange County, Florida thought that a Groupon deal where they paid $42 for a voucher that got them half-price repairs was a pretty good deal. It would have been…if the company would give them their phones back. [More]
