Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Ian Rochester on September 04, 2011, 05:48:00 am
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Just got up to see this on my computer:
http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/spring-clean-carpets/777678?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_1_0_0_247&a=61 (http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/spring-clean-carpets/777678?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_1_0_0_247&a=61)
Two carpets for £26
3 sold so far, be interesting to see how many they sell.
I've never heard of them as a company in this area, website says they are NCCA and also Woolsafe?
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And here
http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/manchester/clean-co-homess/777610?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_1_0_0_247&a=11
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when i was searching for a web marketing consultant, i had a few applications, they were telling me what they would do for my business, and alot of them said they would get me on groupon and explode my business into a new dimension. good job ive got my head screwed on. the guy i ended up going with said groupon is a business killer. and i still believe that that is the case.
i hope they fail dramatically as i can't bring my self to support this kind of marketting. sorry if you feel differently but thats my take on groupon.
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Just got up to see this on my computer:
http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/spring-clean-carpets/777678?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_1_0_0_247&a=61 (http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/spring-clean-carpets/777678?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_1_0_0_247&a=61)
Two carpets for £26
3 sold so far, be interesting to see how many they sell.
i see its upto 27 sold now in a short period, of the £26 how much do groupon take.
Andrew
I've never heard of them as a company in this area, website says they are NCCA and also Woolsafe?
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Upto 37 sold now Ian,
maybe Sunday morning is the best time for marketing carpet cleaning.
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Hi guys
Seems like they've upset a few people
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Group-buying-websites-offer-tele-2573794756.html?x=0
Cheers
Doug
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lets not forget they do not actually get all the £26, i can not see how this is viable.
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The Nottingham Groupon last week offered 3 rooms and 3 peice suite £49. Lol
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78 bought now - good luck with that ;D
Agree with Derek, no-one is seeing the long term detriment to the industry or the short term panic/stress/making no money. Its been seen already with a CC trying to now 'sub out' as much as possible all the jobs he got through groupon. He couldnt cope, and obviously wasnt making money.
When will people learn ???
Mark
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There have been a few articles this week about people who have bought deals off group on and have been unable to get the services that they had paid for. There was also an article about people who get fobbed off by hotels when trying to book their deals.
We bought a photo shoot present for my son and his family but my son was unable to get hold of the people, we ended up getting a refund.
It will not take long before people will get vary of parting with their money..
Peter
www.carpetcleaningcardiff.com (http://www.carpetcleaningcardiff.com)
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Well they don't appear to be NCCA memebers or Woolsafe approved. This is your work they are taking guys. 145 bought now and 7 hours to go. I would be raising the roof.
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i can see the wool safe logo but all i can find of the NCCA is a quote but no mention of membership or logo! where am i looking?
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the first one is vast regd and charges £65 for a 3pc suite and £40 for a through lounge. at those prices he must be very busy to hit the vat threshold.... why does he need to do groupon? but we can only second guess his motives as he is not here to gives his side.
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First of all it is an illegal website as there is no business address on there. It says prices are inclusive of vat. Some others say this even though they aren't actually vat registered and don't actually charge vat. Again this is illegal. Derek, sorry I was told they were saying they were NCCA approved when in fact they just have a quote on there.
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The first ones says their member 2011 of the NCCA and they have the woolsafe logo. As theres no address how can we check if they actually are members?
I suggest if these guys are in your area you do the checks and shop them if needed.
Mark
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i think 2011 is the year of the above quote.
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On the same page is a Groupon offer for an MOT and certificate for £15.
If your car was due an MOT and you saw this offer would you be tempted or would you pay £60 to another garage up the road? All mechanics are the same aren't they?
All the suppliers of carpet cleaning chemicals have offers to entice us to use them, people come on here and say how cheap they have got their printing done ( sometimes its an unqualified printer working from his garage), but doesn't matter as all printers are the same aren't they?
Its human nature, we love a bargain. Just last week someone posted about some pads available on Ebay at a bargain price, people went and bought them. They didn't care the person selling them is working from home and has nothing to do with the industry.
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here here Gary,
I bought some of those pads and they are not too bad either.
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Some very true points there Gary, how does that apply to this thread? Are you saying that people will get a poorer standard of clean from this Groupon deal? How will the people know if this company is dodgey and below par if that's the case?
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Nope not inferring they will get an inferior job, on the contrary really because the person doing the Groupon deal that I know of is doing it for long term customer relations, so will be out to impress. And up-sell, and get referrals.
Just pointing out that some people moan about Groupon then will use Groupon themselves to save a few quid in another industry with no thought to the knock on effect that has.
For so long the pious on here have said don't worry about what your rivals charge just worry about what you make. If those people can't service the work gained from Groupon I think it will give Groupon a bad name, not carpet cleaners. I've never met so many doom merchants in my life.
You can't have it both ways
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I think you're right about Groupon taking the damage. If firms can't deliver the service, Groupon will crash due to lack of cred.
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On the same page is a Groupon offer for an MOT and certificate for £15.
If your car was due an MOT and you saw this offer would you be tempted or would you pay £60 to another garage up the road? All mechanics are the same aren't they?
All the suppliers of carpet cleaning chemicals have offers to entice us to use them, people come on here and say how cheap they have got their printing done ( sometimes its an unqualified printer working from his garage), but doesn't matter as all printers are the same aren't they?
Its human nature, we love a bargain. Just last week someone posted about some pads available on Ebay at a bargain price, people went and bought them. They didn't care the person selling them is working from home and has nothing to do with the industry.
the guy printing in the garage is making a profit, the guy on ebay is making a profit. the service industry on groupon are slogging there guts out to line the groupon managers pockets while they them selves end up subbing out all the work cos they can't cope, making no money just to get leads from people that aren't coming back, and taking away a good living from good carpet cleaners who arent stupid enough to fall for this crap. theres a difference between being cheap due to low overheads and being cheap for the sake of it.
if your really desperate for work, i'm pretty confident you would get a good return on leaflets if you put on 70% off, 2 rooms for £26, this week only. you would then have full control of how many leaflets went out, this would stop you overloading on work, you would also get most of the £26 and allthough a stupid price, its far better than the 60% youd get from it from groupon.
groupon is for mugs unless controlled in which case it wouldn't get work. ask pierre, he controlled it and got 9 sales.
mike wondered why an established company would do this sort of thing, chances are, they employed a (crap) marketing guru and he just said, "i can get you loads of work gauranteed, groupon, now that will be £100 for my advice thank you very much"
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Hi Guys
Groupon is looking to float on the Stock Exchange, they need to hold it together until then, after that the owners will be rich and it can take it's course.
Cheers
Doug
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Derek right now you are looking to find a hotel and are looking for the best deal.
If there was a Groupon offer for Travel lodge you would use it.
Who says the carpet cleaners aren't making any money from Groupon? Now you're being presumptuous.
You mentioned a bloke called Pierre, is that the same one from Altec who added everyone to Facebook so he could market his systems to them for extortionate amounts of money, the guy that flew to Africa to clean a school. I'd suggest he could knock 60% off his prices on a Groupon deal and still be charging more than you do normally. Do you think THAT is giving the industry a good name??
The days of greed are over, this is real life now and Anthea Turner isn't the new Messiah.
Be honest, how much business have you lost from Groupon and how has it affected YOUR business and profits? Chances are those people were never going to be your customers anyway.
You can also pretend Groupon is going to the wall and will be out of business soon. Don't believe that for a second, the hard work is done, they have a database of 6 million users, they ain't going anywhere. As you said, they get 50% of all money that comes in from their deals, when it floats I think I'll buy some shares.
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you say tomayto i say tomarto. in other words, lets agree to disagree.
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you say tomayto i say tomarto. in other words, lets agree to disagree.
My ex said that to me once and I'll give you the same answer I gave her.
"NO"
She never let me forget it either :-\. ( I was right though ).
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it's interesting to see how many jobs you can get in just a few days. i wonder how many were actually going to get their carpets cleaned or just looking for a bargain. i know plenty peopel who go shopping to buy stuff and i imagine groupon users are similar. i doubt many users will be sitting at home thinking i need a carpet cleaner and randomly think lets turn to groupon first then if nothing i'll try google searching for a company. although cheap this may help in that this is turning more home owners into people who want carpets cleaned.
it could be that the cheap gets them into carpet cleaning, and then as time goes on they start seeing carpet cleaning leaflets but for a tad more money and think well maybe it's time i did it as last time it was a good job and it's more money for this new company it'll be an even better job. as the customer becomes richer so will their spending. it's a thought any way.
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Look at it another way everyone is stuck on the lowest price image if you 'sold' a service to die for, no short cuts from pre vac right through to speed drying and protector charged at 75p a sq ft, room based on 150 sq ft = £ 107.50 but groupon special at half price! (imagine the upsell on 2 rooms!!)I bet you could make it pay only if you try.
Shaun
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;D They offer deep crapet cleaning too.
John
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I have to agree with the Bunny :-o
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190 now, at 4 jobs a day it would take 471/2 days!!! Suicide!
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Hi
This is just £20 a room claiming to be £40 a room with a discount, so no change there then!
Dave
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(imagine the upsell on 2 rooms!!)I bet you could make it pay only if you try.
Shaun
Disagree. I think the majority will just go get another groupon deal for their other rooms - and why wouldnt they ??? They would go huh? why would I pay normal rates when I can just get another coupon. The reason they got you was because of the cheapness - thats how these people will operate.
Mark
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201 bought and SOLD OUT!!
Just hope they're based south of the water and not in my neck of the woods.
It just shows though, people are willing to give it a punt if they think it's a good deal.
Assuming the cleaner gets 50% of the price, then they have made £2613 for cleaning a mere 402 carpets!
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£6.50 a carpet, ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D need toilet, ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Mark Lawrence: that's my view too but i'm swinging both ways lately with it. i wont be trying groupon any time soon and can't see why many people would bother but i wonder how bad it really is. 200 jobs well that's crazy i don't get that many enquiries in a week and they've got them in what 2 days? it's not like the normal 200 customers we're experiencing are now turning to groupon, it's the millions of customers who don't ever consider carpet cleaning that are now thinking it's something they'd like to give a go. i agree and was first to say on here that why would they bother going with you next time around when last time you were much less and did a great job. they'll just find another through groupon, however though remember next time you'll be getting at least double as although they may end with £2613, it's double the customer has paid as groupon gets half, so next time it'll be £5000+ at leaast, and they may want another room done this time as they most likely first time getting carpet so only went with couple rooms to trial carpet cleaning but now want the whole house, the trouble is when you hand them a £300 bill when they paid £40 last time
those customers will eventually hopefully earn more money in the future and are now people who see the benefits of clean carpets. plenty people will see brand name or unknown brand for a product and chose the more expensive brand name based solely on the fact it's more money and a brand new so must be better. this could happen with carpet cleaning. when they get a leaflet through that looks pro and even if slightly higher they could think you're better then the last guy and worth paying a bit more, that's then when groupon has helped me as i get more customers paying my rates that appreciate a good service and who would never have been my customer any way. someone else will be doing hard work for peanuts, and then when the customer wants a real carpet cleaner who is worth more then peanuts they can use me.
where it's concerning is when the customer starts telling their friends who are already users of pro carpet cleaners, and tells them how much cheaper it is for groupon and then we lose a current customer.
when people on this site try groupon to me the most important thing to find out is if the customer has ever had their carpets cleaned before. this'll show whether it's good for us all or not.
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You say one thing one minute and another the next. Do you want me to quote a reply from you a few days ago where you have lost out on quotes recently and if only the customer had given you the chance you would have dropped your price?
I can make no sense whatsoever of that pricing bit in the middle, but admit I couldn't read it properly as was banging my head against a brick wall at the time.
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i was talking about office cleaning in general like tables, desk, toilets etc so wanted to know if when quote for cleaning the actual offices daily how often negotiations happen. thought that was clear given the section it was posted in but maybe you forgot which section you were in as i understand it gets confusing for some to remember they've gone from carpet cleaning section to another.
also this forum is for discussing ideas so one minute someone may say i think blue is better then red, then someone says but red is better because it's more noticeable, then the person who preferred blue says actually you've convinced me i think red is better now. i guess some peopel are a bit more open then others to other peoples views on things, you can flame someone for a bad suggestion or point of view or you can listen and say well i disagree but you're welcome to it. fair enough though i mean i enjoy a good decent life with decent peopel who teach me decent people skills, others hide behind a computer screen and just scream it up all day when they see something they don't like
was that confusing too?
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So wait..
Is blue better than red?
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i like a mix of both tbh with a bit of green thrown in if possible
gary: i'd stop banging your head against the table, that prob explains why you find it diffuclt to be a decent poster and have difficulties following something simple like hearing someone elses point of view ;D
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We have Groupy here in New Zealand and we used them this year for branding and gain a market. We sold at about 50% discount and Groupy took 20% off for their costs.
We probably wouldn't wouldn't use them again.
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From the adverts I've checked and some comments posted I get the impression the service provider decides on the deal he wishes Groupon to market.
One has appeared in the Glasgow area offering a " half price deal " ................£70 / usual price £150.
They've sold out at 191 deals.
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Hi
We had one in Manchester, not Groupon one of the others offering a Deal at £19 per room.
On his website he offers £19 per room, so where is the discount.
I think that given a couple of years these sites will get a bad name for this kind of thing!
Dave
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Hi
With groupon who sets the price?
If the Cc sets the price they can say 2 rooms 5x4m £88, now 1/2 price £44, still cheap but better than £27 for them both and a statement that any other work is charged at normal rate. what's groupon %, 50%?
Just an idea that it can be used but just put up the original price therefore earning more, say 4 jobs a day at £44 that's £176 a day which is not too shabby.
Martin 8)
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Yes but you don't get the £44.
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groupon's standard fee is 50% of the offer price + VAT
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Martin they would get £70.40 for 4 jobs per day thats £352 for 5 days work. That should be nearer a days work. They would need to upsell a lot but then they wouldn't be able to fit as many jobs in.
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I guess its useful when there is a slow down as in winter, or you're trying to get your brand known and drive traffic to your website from links on the deal website. But it's a lot of money to give away if you're an established company.
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And your paying their VAT.
What's that all about?
John
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John.
Lots of funny business surrounding the Groupon phenomenon but the VAT issue is NOT one of them
VAT is not a tax on business (unless you have decided not to register because you fall below the threshold)
VAT is a tax on ordinary consumers - all registered businesses can reclaim the VAT as part of their ordinary VAT return
It has always been so since UK adopted VAT in 1973...
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They will be vat registered so have to charge vat as the customer is buying the service from Groupon not the carpet cleaner.
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Hi all, new commer to the forum.
I looked at Groupon also, you have to offer at least 60% discount and groupon take half of it plus vat. If you are not vat registered it will kill you.
It only seems to work of you have an e-product that can be delivered for free or you rely upon getting substantial lifetime value from the numerous new customers you will acquire.
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It is designed for hotels and restaurants to fill quiet periods. Also usefull for some retailers to shift sticking stock. In my view any service provider utilising it is bonkers.
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I agree.
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Second that what john has said..
Some restaurants put these discount customers in the back of the establishment..
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Your still paying their VAT unless you put VAT on
your price.
Like said if not VAT registered it's a killer.
£100 job 60% off = £40 they get £20 + £4 vat.
You get £16.
So it's actually an 84% off job to you.
Crazy.
John
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John you've never really grasped this VAT thing have you. It is a tax which is payable on nearly everything. The only people who haven't got to charge it are businesses who's turnover is below the VAT threshold which is around 70k I think at the minute. Also a few items are exempt like kids clothes.
If your turnover is over that limit you must charge VAT. The amount of VAT you recieve from the customer is not yours, it goes to the government. However if you are VAT registered you can also claim the VAT back you have paid out on chemicals, fuel etc etc. The difference at the end of every quarter is paid to the government. Sometimes if you have bought say a new van or truckmount you may have paid more VAT than you have recieved from your customers so you get a refund from the government.
Groupon are selling vouchers for carpet cleaning the price they sell them at has to include VAT by law. When the carpet cleaner redeems them to groupon he gets paid what ever the deal was worth.
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John - about time you shifted some of that sticking stock on groupon! lol ;D
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I know a guy who has just started a CC company in Glasgow and he went straight for Groupon. They basically told him what he could and couldnt offer as a discount and wrote the whole speiel for his offer. He had very little imput towards it.
Yes, he was flooded for work, and yes, he was working his arse off day in day out, but he did it to build up a customer base, and in this way i think it works quite well.
Also, he has been upselling like crazy and has been very succesfull with that part of it. It seems that while you are there, with all your kit set up and running, if you price the upsell right, 99% of the time you get it, and alot of the time it was cash for him.
So all in all, it serves a purpose for certain ppl in ANY industry.
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Had a customer booked in for tomorrow. Lives in an extremely affluent area of Newcastle. Husband is a rich banker. Millionaires. 8 bedroom house etc.... Rung me today to ask if I could beat Groupon 2 carpets cleaned for £26.
???
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I would say yes I can easy beat that price.
2 carpets for £125 ;D
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Is this how the Bankers are trying to save the country money? should have thought of that 3 years ago!
Shaun
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Thats crazy john them prices near you..
Maybe they will regret it if the cleaners damage there nice carpets..Well thats if they have nice carpets ;D
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I know Clinton - lunacy! Ive been to their house several times before and they are sooooo tight! Im about to get ready to go as I talked them out of it telling them all the usual horror stories!
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I'm not surprised to hear the rats, er sorry Reps leaving the sinking ship Yellow Pages have now found a shiny new way to part you from your cash. The twist is you pay in blood sweat and tears as well this time round. That's inflation for you. ;D