[cozy]

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.

[derek west]

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"

[Doug Holloway]

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

[garyj]

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.   

[derek west]

you say tomayto i say tomarto. in other words, lets agree to disagree.

[garyj]

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 ).

[Adam P]

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.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

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

[JandS]

  They offer deep crapet cleaning too.

John

[Sarah Kirby]

I have to agree with the Bunny :-o

[MAX Carpets]

190 now, at 4 jobs a day it would take 471/2 days!!! Suicide!

[David_Annable]

Hi

This is just £20 a room claiming to be £40 a room with a discount, so no change there then!

Dave

[Mark Lawrence]

(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

[Ian Rochester]

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!

[derek west]

£6.50 a carpet,  need toilet, 

[Adam P]

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.

[garyj]

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.

[Adam P]

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?

[AshWhite]

So wait..





Is blue better than red?

[Adam P]

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