I love Groupon I always think about “What’s a better business model than that?”…nothing. Selling coupons, holding cash until redeemed and having a 50% margin on sales made on items they don’t make in return for offline foot traffic is about as good as it gets. A 12 million-person email list doesn’t hurt either.
But with 500 clones and growing around the world, how can they stay fresh, leverage their scale and stay close to their roots? G-Team? Deal Personalization? Neighborhood level deals? Nope.
I call it Groupon Xtreme.
Groupon Xtreme would be an amazing deal…not 50-60% off a high margin item, but a really insane, extreme deal. It wouldn’t have this “Deal Tips with 50 purchases” minimum, it would use that mechanism to drive true social sharing/evangelism to make the deal more exciting, genuinely at risk and also more popular.
Imagine $1 Burritos at Chipotle (usually a $6.50 value) if 500,000 are bought…today. That’s a mission!
This would be retweeted, re-tumbled, bought up by the 10s and have friends calling their moms to order extra for them. The social spread that this would create would be enormous and the best part is that the deal is genuinely at risk….it just might not happen. The only way to make sure it does is to buckle-down and share it with people who would consume it. This is an easy example because it’s a popular restaurant and a great value, but it’s a half million units to move.
There excitement vs. just an email with a good deal. Scaled up or down for local or national offerings, it would bring a much larger social experiment into play, and one that would make Groupon, the brand and the fans more engaged with the success and sales of the Groupon.
Just a thought…
