Groupon. The fastest growing e-business company ever.
It simply markets daily deep discount deal, activated if a threshold number of people signed up. It taps on the "viral marketing" power of online social networks. And it turns an initial "seed money" of $1 million in November 2008 to a reported Google's bidding price of $5-6 billion today. Not bad for a 2-year's job.
As Groupon continues to expand its reach to cities worldwide at a frantic pace, countless competitors and wannabes are also emerging and trying to capture part of the market share. Here is a compilation of these group-buying sites in three different continents.
Afternote: The use of coupon as a promotional tool for stores to get shoppers in the door is nothing new. The "Groupon" concept focuses on the power of "daily deep discounted deal" (more than 50% is the expectation), "group buying" and "social networks". For other types of coupon sites, there are Coupon Sherpa (for printed, online or mobile coupons), Thrillist (daily email on local offers) and many other grocery coupon sites.
Groupon. The fastest growing e-business company ever.
