[AshWhite]

You have to offer a minimum of 50% discount, although they'd prefer if you offer 60%+, I've heard that they'll lead you to inflate your prices before discounting them (so your not really offering such a massive discount). Then they take 50% of whatever the customer pays, so if customer pays £22 for 2 rooms, you clean 2 rooms for the grand old sum of £11 (minus tax of course..) I've taken part in a few groupon deals, with very little intention of spending anymore with the retailer, so I think the chances of add-on sales are slim. You may make some money on people taking the deal and not using the voucher by the expiry date (I've also done this - doh!). Basically, tread with caution!

Ash

[davep]

Trafiki One is a joke, anyone seen one of there sites?  I haven't

[derek west]

just signed up to trafiki and sorting out my add for groupon, wish me luck.

[AshWhite]

Well done derek, I assume you'll keep us posted?

[derek west]

that depends on whether they reposess my laptop when i go under.

[craignozza]

Interested in the whole groupon thing;

In Brighton a company did groupon a couple of weeks ago with the following terms;

Booking required by phone or email. 24 hour cancellation policy. Domestic cleaning only. Valid Mon-Fri 8am-8pm. Any 2 rooms up to 6m long. Valid within 30 mile radius of Brighton centre.

Price was £28 for 2 rooms - discount of 69% saving £62 off normal £90 price.

318 were brought - totaling  £8904 - I was led to believe groupon did a 50/50 on the sales so would it be worth it after time, tax etc?

The company were members of checkatrade which allows customers to send in feedback forms after the job has been completed, Ive looked at their feedback but not many more seem to have been added so cant really see how it went for them?...

We were thinking of doing this as a way of sourcing customers, getting some good before and after pics and experience as only starting up. Just thought it would be a good promotional tool. Do agree with the fact it is kind of a bait and switch as would need hard upsell to make a decent profit but didnt want to play it from that angle - wanted it to be an introduction method, running the risk of not netting any long term custys would prove annoying though - upselling wasnt something we were going to push if we did it. Suppose practice for us would be good though.

Will be interested to see the outcome for you Dereck, keep us posted please.

Cheers, Vickie (Craigs wife)

[derek west]

sorry guys, but theres no way i'd do something like that, those that know me know that so sorry to the people that thought i was. i don't sign up to nothing that gets sent via email or cold telesales. even if it was a genuine bargain i'd miss out cos i dismiss everything that comes that way. unless i hear a differnent approach, then i may listen or read. but thats rare, "can i speak to the owner of the business" that sentence alone infuriates me.

i think groupon is good for startups all though after reading up on it, it may have a detrimental effect if you can't handle all the work that comes in. you may start to get bad feedback. just because your doing it cheap doesn't mean you should get an easy ride with your bargain hunters, they are what they are and will want perfection for there tuppence.

so to sum up. i'm off for a maccies.

[John Kelly]

I was just going to say I think Derek might have said that tongue in cheek.

I doubt anyone using a groupon coupon to have their carpets cleaned would become a regular customer, at least not the type of regular customer you would like.

[craignozza]

ahh never mind dereck - thought i was going to get some insider knowledge on the groupon front that was all!  

I think you can set yourself a limit on the amount of deals you sell though so maybe that would stop people getting overwhelmed with work.

I'm going to google to see what other people have found the outcome of doing a deal with groupon is, reading through the thread properly has made me wonder about it now. All this advertising / marketing lark is new for me, well in this industry at least so I suppose its all a learning curve - have been reading up on it a hell of a lot though but want to start off on the right level - obviously not nieve enough to sign up to those crappy sales calls - my husband used to get loads of the suspicious firemans / police / cat sanctuary magazine adverts so pretty wise to stuff like that. He used to always let me answer the phone as I'm pretty short when I know its something dodgy and like to question them as much as possible until they trip up and put their foot in it  

Vickie

[Helen]

Interested in the whole groupon thing;

In Brighton a company did groupon a couple of weeks ago with the following terms;

Booking required by phone or email. 24 hour cancellation policy. Domestic cleaning only. Valid Mon-Fri 8am-8pm. Any 2 rooms up to 6m long. Valid within 30 mile radius of Brighton centre.

What if both rooms were 6m long x 5m wide? That's 60 sq mt for £28.00 add on the possibility that it could be 30 miles away, so travel costs and travelling time, take off groupon charge (50%?).....  £14.00 minus overheads....... no thanks

Price was £28 for 2 rooms - discount of 69% saving £62 off normal £90 price.

318 were brought - totaling  £8904 - I was led to believe groupon did a 50/50 on the sales so would it be worth it after time, tax etc?   No, based on what I put above


The company were members of checkatrade which allows customers to send in feedback forms after the job has been completed, Ive looked at their feedback but not many more seem to have been added so cant really see how it went for them?...

Not all customers will give feedback, you can't force them, sometimes the checkatrade admin staff take a while to type up feedback.


We were thinking of doing this as a way of sourcing customers, getting some good before and after pics and experience as only starting up. Just thought it would be a good promotional tool. Do agree with the fact it is kind of a bait and switch as would need hard upsell to make a decent profit but didnt want to play it from that angle - wanted it to be an introduction method, running the risk of not netting any long term custys would prove annoying though - upselling wasnt something we were going to push if we did it. Suppose practice for us would be good though.

IMO you would be better off getting leaflets printed and doing some legwork yourself, rather than work at stupid rates as above


Will be interested to see the outcome for you Dereck, keep us posted please.
He was having a laugh


Cheers, Vickie (Craigs wife)

[derek west]

ahh never mind dereck - thought i was going to get some insider knowledge on the groupon front that was all!  

I think you can set yourself a limit on the amount of deals you sell though so maybe that would stop people getting overwhelmed with work.
I'm going to google to see what other people have found the outcome of doing a deal with groupon is, reading through the thread properly has made me wonder about it now. All this advertising / marketing lark is new for me, well in this industry at least so I suppose its all a learning curve - have been reading up on it a hell of a lot though but want to start off on the right level - obviously not nieve enough to sign up to those crappy sales calls - my husband used to get loads of the suspicious firemans / police / cat sanctuary magazine adverts so pretty wise to stuff like that. He used to always let me answer the phone as I'm pretty short when I know its something dodgy and like to question them as much as possible until they trip up and put their foot in it  

Vickie

no you can't, groupon work on the principle, the more they sell the more they get, you cap the jobs and groupon are capping there profits, they just wouldn't do that, there innit for the money full stop, not to help you get a few jobs. the more aggressive the discount the more they'll promote your add. but capping is something not in there vocabulary.

ps... don't know this for sure but from what ive read from john kellys google search, i bet my latte on it.

[craignozza]

Helen - think you've hit the nail on the head! no wasting time with groupon and spending the time leaflet delivering instead 
re checkatrade, only mentioned it as had no way of gauging deal unless i phoned the company and asked how groupon went for them! we were members for what husband was doing and we always sent the forms off ourselves rather than letting a customer do it; do agree that people dont always send em back & staff can be slow to post on site.
Vickie

[Helen]

Helen - think you've hit the nail on the head! no wasting time with groupon and spending the time leaflet delivering instead 
re checkatrade, only mentioned it as had no way of gauging deal unless i phoned the company and asked how groupon went for them! we were members for what husband was doing and we always sent the forms off ourselves rather than letting a customer do it; do agree that people dont always send em back & staff can be slow to post on site.
Vickie

I never work out monies that could be earnt on the largest scale, it's too easy to get fooled if you see "you could earn.....thousands"... bring it down to base facts and then see if a job is worth doing

The groupon type of thing would be good in some areas of industry and the best I can get my head round would be restaurants.........where the mark up is very high anyway and other than the discount itself people would buy extras without having to be sold to

Does anyone know for definate that Groupon take their commission from all vouchers that are purchased, even if the jobs don't go ahead for some reason

[derek west]

i would guess that the consumer pays groupon direct, groupon take there 50% and then send you the rest with all the details. easy money for them, headache for you if theres a few takers.

[AshWhite]

They send you a few cheques, one 24 hours after deal ends, one 2 weeks after it ends, and one a month later. Not sure if thos timings are right, but the principle is definately true.