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Groupon Still Losing Money, CEO Is Fired And Leaks Final Email
New submitter Inzkeeper writes with news that the CEO of Groupon met the axe today: "Groupon CEO Andrew Mason made public an email he sent to Groupon employees. He takes responsibility for the company's downturn, expresses his appreciation for his staff, and wishes them well. 'For those who are concerned about me, please don't be — I love Groupon, and I'm terribly proud of what we've created. I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through.'"
Despite increased revenues, they are still losing about $81 million each quarter, and Wall Street needs blood.
I bet most stopped right there.
Blech. Signatures.
There's a company that pumped the highest profit in a quarter without pumping oil. Massive cash pile, no debt. And Wall Street continues to punish it. Wall Street wants bloods.
2 years ago Google offered $5B to $6B to buy Groupon. Groupon turned them down and today their market cap is $3B. Oops.
does this mean that everybody's caught on to their predatory business model?
No, not everybody. Just those who haven't seen it from day zero.
The thing is, they could probably stand to make a lot of money if they weren't quite so predatory. I think that for the most part, the people who bought the groupons were quite happy. However, the businesses who offered the groupons often got shafted. I'm sure they could easily change the way they they deal with businesses to make sure they have a much better experience. For instance, most of the time they push for no limits on the number of coupons sold. Instead, there should always be a limit, because most businesses aren't set up to handle the amount of business that Groupon could send to them. Groupon would still make money off the deal, and would probably even have some repeat business.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm pretty sure that 'being CEO of a company built on skimming a percentage of the profits from businesses willing to lose money and make it up in volume' is epic trolling on a scale that most trolls will never even be able to dream of...
If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be short-lived, fictitious, and not popular with today's consumers. Maybe Groupon is Battletoads.
Judging by the sheer amount of Pro-Groupon turfing you've been doing I'm guessing you've got money invested in them, or are just completely clueless. The entire model is geared to push retailers to short-sell their products or services, it's a lowest-bidder war between the merchants who are putting them out. Groupon also aggressively markets to businesses which are already on the verge of failing, using a line of basically "well it's worth a last ditch effort" and as long as they don't close shop in a week Groupon makes their money and the buyer get fucked as well.
You also obviously don't understand the mind of the Coupon hunter- they are not going to PAY good money for a coupon if it's not a damn good deal. So what if I can save 10% to re-carpet my living room? I can get that deal any where in town. But when you're offering it at 50% of the best offer the competition runs, I might just decide it's time for some new floor coverings.
But arguing with you is rather pointless, people have seen Groupon, tried it, and walked away with a bad taste in their mouth. The stock price is tanking because all they are doing is spending more and more cash with less and less to show for it. So 'turf away, Mr. Shill, 'turf away... if you do it enough who knows... You might get your next purchase of Astroturf for 25% the normal rate!
The analogy between Battletoads and Groupon goes even deeper. Just as Battletoads had an infamous bug that prevented Player 2 from completing Level 11 (they would just sit motionless until they lost all their lives), Groupon looks like in the near future it will be stuck in Chapter 11.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Or more accurately, they are getting boned because EVERYONE has a competing service. Barrier to entry on this concept is near zero.