Groupon and Living Social

[StormRichards]

Like I thought, that donut deal I mentioned is only discounted by a couple dollars despite the package cost being close to $20. Because the package consists of multiple Groupons at lower amounts. Definitely not worth it for that particular offer.

Still going to browse around again with the new DEAL50 offer

[StormRichards]

Definitely not a fan of the Groupon website. They have an option to narrow the deals by price with _____ to _____ fields. The problem is you enter a price in one field and it starts to refresh before it lets you enter in the second field. Would much prefer to enter in both fields and have to click "submit" or something than having a site refresh while I am trying to enter stuff.

[GoodSteward]

I'm assuming the decline is the same reason I heard in a recent management meeting here at work that they are cutting out most of the sales during the year. It's hurting the brand and the value. People are starting to get to where they will not pay full price anymore because we had so many sales they would just wait. Too many deals too often shifts from bringing in business to devaluing the product. I assume this is why Groupon and others are going down. "If it isn't on sale, it isn't worth it" becomes the idea, or
"the sales price is the new retail."

[SavingSteve]

I'm assuming the decline is the same reason I heard in a recent management meeting here at work that they are cutting out most of the sales during the year. It's hurting the brand and the value. People are starting to get to where they will not pay full price anymore because we had so many sales they would just wait. Too many deals too often shifts from bringing in business to devaluing the product. I assume this is why Groupon and others are going down. "If it isn't on sale, it isn't worth it" becomes the idea, or
"the sales price is the new retail."

Banana Republic suffers from this this. I won't buy anything there if it's not 30-40% off.

[disneysteve]

Banana Republic suffers from this this. I won't buy anything there if it's not 30-40% off.

The problem in a retail setting is that the store can just raise it's prices and make it look like things are on sale. That doesn't work in the Groupon model because a restaurant can't hike the prices for the handful of patrons on any given day that are there on a Groupon while everyone else is paying full price.

One thing we encountered at one restaurant was a special menu just for the Groupon vouchers. It wasn't an "x dollars" for "y dollars worth of food" deal. It was dinner for 2 with a 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, and 1 dessert so it made sense to restrict the choices.

[Thrif-t]

Yep I usually use Groupon for massages. Well actually I've only done it twice. But since you posted the Deal50 I went and got myself another one. Thing is Deal50 wouldn't work for me. I think it has to be emailed to you?? At least that's what I found when I googled Groupon promo codes. But I found Fresh20 and that worked for 20% off so I got an hour and half massage for 43 bucks!! Whoop, whoop. The girl had great reviews too. And honestly I've not had a bad massage. They are just so expensive but I don't mind going to new places to get a discount. Its actually the only way I'll go.

[StormRichards]

Yep I usually use Groupon for massages. Well actually I've only done it twice. But since you posted the Deal50 I went and got myself another one. Thing is Deal50 wouldn't work for me. I think it has to be emailed to you?? At least that's what I found when I googled Groupon promo codes. But I found Fresh20 and that worked for 20% off so I got an hour and half massage for 43 bucks!! Whoop, whoop. The girl had great reviews too. And honestly I've not had a bad massage. They are just so expensive but I don't mind going to new places to get a discount. Its actually the only way I'll go.

The deal is referenced at the top of their website once I logged in.

[Thrif-t]

The deal is referenced at the top of their website once I logged in.

Nope the top of mine says the Fresh20, must be different deals for different parts of the country. You win today

[StormRichards]

Nope the top of mine says the Fresh20, must be different deals for different parts of the country. You win today

Want me to book you a massage with my discount?

[Thrif-t]

Oh dang it Storm we should've done that.ha

Watch I'll have the DEAL50 on my site tomorrow! Oh well I'm completely happy with getting an hour and half services for $43!! The lady has all good reviews so I'm excited. I guess the first half hour is a foot massage, that will be heavenly.

[StormRichards]

Oh dang it Storm we should've done that.ha

Watch I'll have the DEAL50 on my site tomorrow! Oh well I'm completely happy with getting an hour and half services for $43!! The lady has all good reviews so I'm excited. I guess the first half hour is a foot massage, that will be heavenly.

I have never had that long of a massage. Totally jealous

[scfr]

The only restaurant Groupons I see anymore are 10-35% "cashback" options which aren't appealing, mostly for overpriced restaurants. Where I live, it seems that the days of finding half-off vouchers for reasonably priced restaurants are gone.

[disneysteve]

The only restaurant Groupons I see anymore are 10-35% "cashback" options which aren't appealing, mostly for overpriced restaurants. Where I live, it seems that the days of finding half-off vouchers for reasonably priced restaurants are gone.

I suspect that the restaurants may have found that it wasn't financially beneficial to participate. The theory is that it would attract new customers who would continue to come without a voucher but the reality may be that people just jump from place to place based on who has a good voucher this week.

Around there, the deals are still good and plentiful so we'll keep using it as long as that continues to be the case.

[disneysteve]

over the weekend they had a promo code to get $10 off your next voucher, no minimum purchase required. I found a nearby restaurant that we like that had a voucher to get $30 worth of food for $16. I applied the promo code which brought the price down to $6. So DW and I will have a nice dinner out one of these days for 6 bucks.

I thought I'd post an update to this story.

We used the Groupon tonight. Of course, the final price wasn't actually $6 because of tax and tip, plus our order ended up being $32, so slightly over the value of the voucher.

Final bill before the Groupon was $34.24.
Groupon took $30 off the bill leaving $4.24.
I left a $6 tip on the $32 total.

So our final cost for dinner for 2 was $16.24 ($6 Groupon, $4.24 bill, $6 tip) instead of the $40.24 it would have been otherwise. Not a bad deal at all.