Groupon is it worth it?

Has anybody tried this? Was wondering if I could use this to drum up local business? Wondering if you could post a deal for 1 room cleaned at a discount for a month that is tradtionally slower like lets say March. Would want to keep it local and for a specific time period. Does it work?

If you had a cookie store, probably not a bad idea. You take the upfront loss but people will hopefully visit you frequently allowing you to make a good ROI in a short period of time. By the time you offer 40-50% off, then Groupon takes half of the proceeds... You're left with 25% - not to cover your fuel for the job. If you do it be prepared to lose money on every job and hope that the Groupon customers turn into good repeats and referrals. Think of it as a very long term investment. I think you will make out better by putting an offer on your web-site and FaceBook for 15%-30% off. I looked into it a while ago and Groupon will not negotiate with you.   

Excellent answer carpetdaddy, can't disagree at all.

I think cleaners put too much effort into discounting their services as a means to get work. Much of the time, all they end up with is a sore back and less money. There are better ways to get exposure without sacrificing your wallet.

Groupon for a service based business that is a once or twice a year service

IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY, NAY, AN EXPENSE EACH AND EVERY TIME

its one thing if you are a lawn service and are there once a week in a route setup that you cover anyway....

but for our service....ehhhh no...

and anyone that says other wise....is lying

You would probably pick more jobs up by marketing some door hangers and paying a high school kid to pass out 3000 to target neighborhood. It would probably only cost ya around $250 after everybody gets paid.

groupon emerged right around the financial crisis of 2008, they take advantage of small business by offering a large sum of money upfront for services sold.

Here in seattle the only off you can do is 3 rooms for 69 bucks and groupon takes half.

what they tell you is well sell 3000 jobs and youll get a check in the mail for (x) x 3000, which is a good chunk of money and very tempting for a struggling business.

how they are still around now that the economy is much better is beyond me, customers care more about saving a buck than helping the local economy.

businesses that put out a living social or groupon many times go belly up, especially restaurants and service companies like us.

it doesnt work for landscaping, lawn mowing, etc heard nightmare stories about local guys around here putting one out and they are still doing $30 jobs a year later

they go out of business because its easier to just get a new business name rather than try to fulfill all those cheap orders


I can do 1 job in 2hrs that equals 2 days worth of groupon work and the customer is happy to pay that amount.

Groupon is good for businesses that don't have heavily increased variable costs as a result of increased volume. A good example would be a yoga class (same costs whether you have 5 or 15 clients) or an O/O massage therapist. I don't think it's a very good idea for our craft.

I've done it a couple of times in the past, as a matter of fact we're the first carpet cleaning company in Los Angeles area that ran with Groupon.
Here's my opinion, it used to be not so bad due to the ability to play with numbers, we can set our retail price as high as $ 0.50 / sq ft and discounted it 50 %, that makes it $ 0.25 / sq ft, then we negotiate with Groupon their cut ( they won't negotiate anymore now ), we were able to drop the split to 75 - 25, that makes the square footage price dropped to $ 0.18 - $ 0.19, which is not too bad especially you sell a lot, our first deal sold around 180 homes plus we scheduled off of groupon some customers, over all around 200 customers at $ 179 each, after Groupon's cut, we still pocketed about $ 30 grand, after all the expenses and such, we still profit about half.
BUT THAT WAS THEN !
Now they want the price to be as low as possible and they won't go lower than 40 % split for them, and they won't do a larger price point, after we ran 3 times, we gave up on them because it got to a point where the profit is down to about a thousand or two every deal ran due to the sales dropped because they ran too many carpet cleaning deals too close in between.
If you're in a smaller market and they don't run too many deals, and you can run a reasonable price point, I think you can still make profit, I would recommend to run on the winter because it will help keep you a little busier during winter, but if you live in a larger market and they're telling you what price point they are interested at, forget it, you won't make profit and if you think those customers are going to call you again when they need their carpets cleaned, don't hold your breath on that :-)

Thanks, great advice from someone that has been down that road.

I have used both living social and groupon. My ad is 3 rooms up to 450 sq, ft., traffic areas only. No rentals or high rises, limit one per customer. I list my regular price as $140. I get 60% they get 40%.
That leaves me at $42.00 per customer which is close to break even with the opportunity to upsell or gain a full price customer in the future.
To me, this beats the heck out of running an ad which may run several hundred or more dollars and getting 2 or three calls which don't even book.
If you limit your ad to slower time of year and the number of offers sold, you really are not hurt in the short run, and may benefit significantly in the long run.

I went to a job this afternoon,

I showed up and there is a hyundai with a magnet on the side that says "------- carpet care"

I go up to the door and ask if the homeowner was there, she comes to the door looking really nervous

She tells me she called but "it was like ummmm after hours" and says she left a message cancelling the appt.

I said I didnt receive any message, and showed her my voicemail inbox. She says with innocence, "I called 3 companies and scheduled, then cancelled 2"


I charged her $40 for not cancelling and she paid it so obviously she never called to cancel.


but, I recognize the company from a groupon AD $45 for 3 rooms


so the funny story is, we got paid 2x their income from the job just for the lady not calling to cancel.



I always feel bad doing it, but she called 3 companies thats BS and it was a drive to get there.


I smiled at the guys doing the carpet, and commented on their nice pile lifter, but it was akward for them for sure because they say what we charged for a no cancellation

She'll probably end paying more that 45.00 to clean her carpet 

ya she did, cause I charged her 40 bucks for being stupid and calling multiple companies, then not bothering to cancel at least 1.

ACpower1 wrote:I went to a job this afternoon,    

I showed up and there is a hyundai with a magnet on the side that says "------- carpet care"

I go up to the door and ask if the homeowner was there,    she comes to the door looking really nervous

She tells me she called but "it was like ummmm after hours"    and says she left a message cancelling the appt.

I said I didnt receive any message,   and showed her my voicemail inbox.    She says with innocence,   "I called 3 companies and scheduled,   then cancelled 2"        


I charged her $40 for not cancelling and she paid it so obviously she never called to cancel.      


but,     I recognize the company from a groupon AD      $45 for 3 rooms


so the funny story is,    we got paid 2x their income from the job just for the lady not calling to cancel.



I always feel bad doing it,   but she called 3 companies thats BS and it was a drive to get there.


I smiled at the guys doing the carpet,   and commented on their nice pile lifter,    but it was akward for them for sure because they say what we charged for a no cancellation  

Good for you, and way to stand up to those BS Customers!...........that no one, errr I mean I sure don't need. Price shoppers/cheap fuxks can just keep moving right past me to Cheap0 Carpet Care Co.