Today, Groupon.com is the biggest deal of the day site in the world. Its name comes from the words “group” and “coupon” and it is a place where you can buy stuff at really big discounts, reaching 90% for some offers. When the company went public on the 4th of November 2011, it was valued at nearly 13 billion dollars. That made the event the biggest IPO (Initial Public Offering), since Google‘s. Having in mind that at that time Groupon was a relatively new company (only 3 years old) and it had never made even a penny of profits, this was really a huge success! And here is how everything happened…
Andrew Masen
Andrew Masen was born in 1980 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When he was just 15 he started a morning delivery service called ‘Bagel Express’. After finishing high school, he went to study at Northwestern University, where he got a bachelor’s degree in music. He in that time he worked as a web designer for InnerWorkings, a company founded by Eric Lefkofsky. They created a platform called ThePoint, which was not going well. So, they decided to change the business model.
How the site was founded
Groupon actually derived from the site – ThePoint.com, where you can start a campaign asking people to give money or do something as a group. In November of that same year, Groupon was founded. Andrew shared the idea with his ex-boss Eric Lefkofsky, who liked it and agreed to provide $1 000 000 starting capital for its development. This was how the company went operational. The first discount deal was a pizza offer, for the restaurant on the first floor of the building in Chicago, where Groupon’s office was. Who could have imagined, that this site offering pizza for a couple of bucks would become the market leader in the “sale of the day” business… Soon, the number of offers started increasing really fast, and the same happened with the sales. The number of employees grew from a dozen to more than 350 in less than a year and a half. At that time the estimated value of the company was around $1 billion. In 2010, the management started a strategy for conquering the international markets. This was achieved by several acquisitions of similar sites around the world: mycitydeal.com – in Europe, in May 2010; ClanDescuento.com based in South America, in June 2010; Qpod.jp based in Japan; The Russian Darberry.ru, and Beeconomic.com, based in Singapore. The company was turning into a big international empire. This didn’t stay unnoticed by some of the dominating online corporations. In October 2010, a rumor spread around that Yahoo offered $3 billion of dollars to acquire Groupon, but a deal was not achieved. Only a month later in the same year, the search giant Google Inc. offered the amazing $6 billion for the company, but Andrew rejected the deal again. And rejecting these billions turned out to be the wiser decision. Why? Because the site was about to bring much more billions…
The IPO
On the 4th of November 2011, the IPO of Groupon’s shares was launched. The company offered 30 million shares at $20 each, but the number was increased due to the high demand to 35 million. This way the leader in “deals of the day” business managed to raise $700 million in just a day and the company was valued at nearly $13 billion by the market.
The Business Model Of The ‘Deal Of The Day’ Site
How does Groupon make money? Well, in fact, the company has never registered any profits, but this is the interesting thing in its business model… On the site are listed discount offers from retailers, which has to be bought by a certain number of people to be activated. If the “critical mass” of buys is achieved, every buyer gets the product or the service. Otherwise, the offer simply expires. This is a kind of insurance for the retailers, that at least a certain level of buyers will be achieved. This way they usually sell at a loss, but they take advantage of the marketing effect coming from the thousands of people viewing their products and services. The main principle here is that if the client is happy, she/he will come back… Groupon takes half of the listing price of the offer.
Today
Today, the company operates in more than 45 different countries and this number is growing. Its employees are more than 10 000 and the registered customers are around 40 million worldwide. Groupon’s main office is still located in Chicago, but it has regional offices in Europe, Canada, Asia, Latin America, and some other places around the world.
What makes Groupon unique is that it brings together merchants and customers in a marketplace of deals. Merchants can submit their products to be sold and if they are accepted by the Groupon team they will be displayed on the main page of the website. Customers can browse through the offers and find something that interests them. It’s easy to use as it only takes a few clicks to make a purchase.
Groupon is a great way to save money when shopping online. Not only does it give discounts on certain items, but it also let you know about new products released by certain companies. This makes it a great way for consumers to stay up-to-date with new developments in the marketplace. Furthermore, Groupon also passes savings on to customers from merchant discounts and free shipping offers, which could make your shopping experience even cheaper than usual.
You can join Groupon for free and start exploring the wide variety of deals available. When you’re ready to buy something, all you need to do is click a button and enter your credit/debit card information for payment. Groupon also has an application that lets you access all of their deals right from your phone or tablet so you can get savings wherever you are.
Overall, Groupon is an excellent resource for finding discounts on items ranging from food to electronics and more. Whether you’re looking for a great deal or just browsing around, it’s definitely worth checking out for some major savings!
Some of the major and most popular sites are:
US – https://groupon.com
UK – https://groupon.co.uk
Canada – https://groupon.ca
More about Groupon can be found also at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/groupon
Facebook:www.facebook.com/groupon
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The Start Up Story Of Eric Xu and Robin Li – How Baidu.com Was Founded
Alphabet Inc’s (Google) History – The Start Up Story of Sergey Brin And Larry Page
The History of eBay – Pierre Omidyar And His Amazing Start Up Story
Rebelmouse.com’s History – Paul Berry’s Social Aggregator Start Up
The History Of Amazon.com – How Jeff Bezos Started Up The Company
3 Internet Start Up Ideas That Were Turned Into Multi-Million Businesses
Dell Computers History – The Start-Up Story of Michael Dell
One Sale a Day – 1SaleADay.com’s Story
