Groupon has helped many local businesses sell more and more of their products using the concept of group buying. However, there are some things you need to know before using Groupon for your business.
- You will gain a lot of one time customers
- They may not be loyal to your business
- Loyal customer base may shrink
We’ve used Groupon and another similar program in both of our markets and have had good success. I think the Offer is what is most important. You want to make sure your offer requires the guest to purchase more than the stated groupon value. We do a $5 for $10 worth of food and our average ticket/person is around $7.00. If you don’t use all the groupon you forfeit your savings. What we have seen is that most people come in with two or more people and then they can only use one groupon so the total bill is averaging right now around $15.00. This means we are getting an extra five dollars on top of the split with Groupon.
I think groupon has been a good idea for our company. I’m sure other companies would disagree with me.