Groupon and the very local Exeter experience

Groupon surely the ‘hot’ company of 2011 – offering daily deals straight into your inbox every day to a specific geographic area – Exeter (in my case).

Groupon became a huge success by offering big discounts at local stores such as hair dressers and car valeting, emailing the offers every day to subscribers in the geographic market, such as Exeter or London. It’s not uncommon for the offers to be bought by thousands of people, who can redeem them any time over a period of months or even a year.

This success in way created an issue as for example in my case I am registered with Groupon in Exeter BUT what happens when I am in London, do I currently receive any Groupon’s? The answer a simple no….

So how is Groupon evolving and tapping what surely is a massive market?  In simple terms they are rolling out a product called GrouponNow in the USA.  Anyone familiar with Voucher Cloud or QuidCo will know how this works, in offering deals that you are near. GrouponNow in the states takes this further by in some cases making the offers time limited.  Act now or miss out in other words.

This has got to be a great evolution of the Groupon Strategy and in using their massive subscriber base very powerful indeed, as a lover of Voucher Cloud I am very interested in how they may respond and address this encroachment into mobile territory.  For Groupon this cant come to the UK quick enough, mobile is big and has been for quote a while and Groupon need to be part of this.