[Neil Williams]

2 in one day, a bit of a record really.
Case 1. trafiki.com who will find you the work for 15% commission
Case 2. groupon.com who work on the principle of discount vouchers so you take on the work at £22 for 2 rooms and although she wouldn't admit so much you then 'upsell' to make the job more worthwhile. Apparently this is quite big in the states and let's hope it stays there.

I got quite a stroppy e-mail after my wife tried to convince this sales woman that all this amounted to was bait and switch

[derek west]

i think group on is a good idea, future customers etc...

got the traffiki email today. looks like a win win but i'm guessing theres a catch

[M.Acorn]

Just got the Trafiki one !!

[Mike Halliday]

groupon is a fantastic idea I'm on their mailing list and love getting their offers. for restaurants & hotels stays its brilliant  but for carpet cleaning I don't think its a good idea

[derek west]

mike
do you not think its a good idea for newbies rather than doing free demo's?

£22 for 2 rooms and a possible custy for life and maybe some recomends, etc.....

[Mike Halliday]

Derek from the deals I've seen on Groupon they always have conditions, so if I carpet cleaners did it they could put the condition that they also have a least one other room cleaned at the normal price. or that the offer is only available with a 5 miles radius of your home any further out and there is a £20 surcharge.

I've spent £100s on marketing that brought in no work.... at least with this you will cover your costs

[derek west]

now i'm confused.

anyway, for newbies i think groupon is a good idea.

it would also be interesting to see just how many custies you really get in 24 hrs? when i get offers from group on i find it hard to believe that 268 people have taken the offer up before 9am

[John Kelly]

BE VERY VERY CAREFULL!!!

We know people who have been stung badly with this scheme. If you are going to do it read the small print and understand the concept before you go anywhere with it.
A cleaner used this with the idea he'd do a one off clean and then hopefully sign up a fair percentage as ongoing customers. It cost him over £4000 and not one customer signed him up for a regular clean. Nearly wiped him out.
A local hairdresser used it and forgot to specify exactly what they could get for the offer. They all wanted full wash, cut and dyes etc, again cost her lots and lots of money.
Basically you can be overwhelmed with cut price work which could takes weeks and weeks to clear.

Just put "groupon problems" into google.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Groupon are great and take their money but on high volumes people can get stung as some companies put the offer on and can't handle the work so you lose out, we had an article about this in our local newspaper.

Shaun

[mark_roberts]

I did a job last week where she had a guy who she booked from groupon for £24 for three rooms.  He didnt turn up or answer the phone.

There is no way you will make any money at these prices.  You may as well do it for free.

She admitted she thought it was too good to be true.

Mark

[derek west]

so does anyone know how much you pay groupon?

and i'm presuming you pay them wether you do the job or not!

[davep]

It works out you get approx £20 per your usual £100 as you need to offer a 65% discount and then pay groupon a % too 

[jim mca]

Yesterdays sunday mail had a story of a sole trader who tried this
eyelash extensions normal price £75 with groupon £25 and groupon keep half
she had to close due to the demand even got abusive calls.

[Adam P]

people think customers looking for a dead cheap deal from any old company will be life long customers? say you do 2 bedrooms for £22, you do a fantastic job because you need them to come back as £22 for 2 rooms isn't worth it, so you impress them. Then what next time? 2 rooms for £60? then what do they do? any one want to guess? they've seen the companies that use groupong will offer dead cheap services and try their hardest, so they'll go straight backto groupon and find another cheapo. Groupon customers wont be the type to appreciate a good service for a good price, but instead a good service for a stupid price. what needs to happen is you turn up to do the £22 job and then do a crap job, then at least they'll realise then why they need to pay fair money for a good service.

[Carpet Dawg]

Groupon keep 50% of the total sale.

Thing is, it attract cheap sakes not loyal customers. They'll just wait till your next Groupon comes along to get thier carpets cleaned.

Alot of compaines have lost out big time.

Groupn itself is in debt. They turn over $2 Billion a year but thier out goings are huge. To pay all the sales staff and cold callers and  the largest part goes to thier google Adwords and other advertising methods they use online (media buys). They spend it quicker than they make it.

Alot of people say they wont be  around for long.

[Adam P]

amazon spent the money quicker then they made it for years too. a lot of successful businesses do this as it's a quick way to expand and make a lot of money. they'll get more and more known and then their advetising bills can go down and their profit up.

[Neil Williams]

As I said at the beginning, the only way I can see this working is to upsell on every job to the extreme, which must surely cross the line into the bait & switch scheme. How else can you explain a potential customer believing they will get something done for £22 only to be talked into writing a cheque out for £122
Ryan Air are the masters of selling a flight to the Med for £30 until you try and buy the £30 flight only to find out there's a £70 booking fee, food at £10, coffee at £4 etc etc etc. And how much grief have they been on the end of for doing this.
Either way you're onto a loser. Hard sell and never see that customer and friends again, or go bust in the process working flat out for nothing.

[Carpet Genie]

I had the Trafiki one today as well - anyone had any dealings with them?
Seems like a no lose situation - you only pay them for work they get you, and you can always add on to the price to cover their fee.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Surprised that Enterprise haven't gone for Groupon it's made for them.

Shaun

[Adam P]

at a guess it doesn't even work for them it's that bad.