Groupon my take
I think that Groupon and and the types are devaluing the product or service they claim to help sell. It makes price the determining factor. I chose a business model of winning over customers with quality and price point, groupon goes straight on price only Rather tha win customers over they present false margins and price point where people will no longer understand the cost of doing business. What that means is new customers(younger, urban, educated comsumers) will forever know the cost as presented by groupon. They will think the groupon price is more like the actual price driving prices down all around. It is the illegal immigrant of websites. When a restaurant knows it is going out they ramp up sales of gift certificates for cash flow, I can see businesses doing that with groupon. I can say from our industry it is a perfect fit for a bait and switch who has no intentions of honoring the price like I do and many others do. My prices aren't subject to some of the far out charges other companies throw out there and my guess is the ones offering the deal are looking to get into the house and fuckover the homeowner and run with the $$$$. They don't have a personal face on their business and hide behind advertising and computers.
I think loyalty will be out the window and people will not buy again unless the price is adjusted downwards or if they did run into a bait and switch it will turn them off top our services in general hurting all the true business people around them. Just like the "local Guys" who aren't actually local putting a black eye on the rest of us.
Groupon has done what it is supposed to do, set it self up to make a windfall but longterm success isn't in the future for groupon because companies have to cheat lie and steal to be successful and that leads to BS internet people rather than real businesses
Small businesses are often dumb in their marketing, so Groupon probably benefits from some businesses not realizing discounts hurt their exact business, or overpaying for Groupon promotions or for yellowpages ads. But companies like google, groupon, yellow pages all prey these business knowing they will overpay ofor adwords or cut discount so bad thinking the cash flow will save them. With a 1 time a year service you are cannibilaizing your business by using groupn, it may work if your a weekly service but not 6 months to a year plus. Groupon will actually work to the detriment of people who expect to get in and upsell because the customer will feel ripped off knowing they paid $50 and got charged more than double, whilke the business made no real money they have a negative custoemr talking to their friends.
My opinion is groupon should help businesses let the customer know what they should be doing rather than here is what it is and here is how much it would have been. A much more comprehensive posting of real world price and cost analysis letting the consumer know that this business is probably going to lose money to meet them.