No thanks. People that wouldn't go back probably didn't have a good experience.

Quick poll of my friends - 11 out of 11 say they would go back to somewhere they went with a Groupon and 5 already have.

You're reading about too many life nits.

So everyone except your friends are life nits? There are at least a half dozen people in this topic who use these coupon sites and all of them said they will not become repeat business and not one has said that they will. This is the same in every other conversation on these coupon sites yet your friends are somehow the exact opposite of everyone who posts online.

Dude no offence but being from Chicago and pretty much contradicting everything that is common knowledge about the topic isn't faring well for the claim that you don't work for Groupon.

I think this is a pretty dumb assumption.

But after reading most of your responses it seems to be a pretty common trait.

Most people now a days are price conscious. I have friends who make 6 figures yearly who log in and check their Groupon/LS/and other daily deal sites each day.

What is dumb about it specifically?

you seem to assume that people who use Groupon and similar sites...are

1. Cheap
2. Rude
3. Incredibly dumb
4. Have no taste
5. Don't act like normal human beings

John Doe logs into his Groupon and see's a $60 for $30 to a nice restaurant in Scottsdale he has heard good things about. He buys it and later that week takes out the girl he's dating. The food is great, the service is great, and they end up spending around $100 total on their meal after having a wonderful night.

John tips the waitress $4.50 on the $100 tab.

He and his GF both vow never to return to the restaurant again, despite enjoying eating out at restaurants, unless they get 50% off or better.


...what planet do you live on that you think this is the typical response for the majority of Groupon users?

No. I assumed that they will not tip as well as people paying full price which was also the findings of a Rice study on Groupon users. Further, even if it wasn't true what matters is perception and it is perfectly reasonable for waitstaff to assume that someone getting 50% off is going to tip less than someone paying full price. Even if they tipped the same percentage a coupon user is not going to tip on the non-discounted price.

The same study also found that people who use Groupon rarely spend more than the value of the coupon.

The kind that actually reads up on subjects before posting rather than just reacting from hurt feelings because they perceive that they are being grouped in with cheap people.

lol...just saw your screen name.
nevermind. your totally right about Groupon.

I explicitly stated something similar. I go out to eat a lot, but I don't eat at $30/plate places very often. I just bought 3 groupons for a place that is $30/plate, and if it is amazing I might go back for a very special occasion but most likely I'll be off to the new place that offers a 50% off deal. For me to go back, it will most likely have to replace my favorite place.

This is me you're talking about. Like I said I don't go to places this high end so often. I would go back to the groupon place if it is better than my current favorite high end place. Otherwise, I'll most likely just keep going to the best.

No I was actually just using that as an example given it was fresh in my mind.
There are lots of John Does who fit into that little box...some like yourself actually have a list of fancy places they go out to eat regularly, some go occasionally, and some go every blue moon for a special event. Others never really go out to eat at places like Noca etc. Thus they don't even think about buying the Groupon and if they do on a lark, they probably never get around to using it.

For a good chunk of the people...how good the place is compared to what there they typically eat at will determine if they return. If its Olive Garden then they probably never return.

I find it hard to believe that if you went to a nice restaurant because you like going to nice places occasionally, and u were then wow'd by the place and loved it...in the future when you decided you wanted to go to a nice restaurant, you wouldn't consider returning to that same restaurant.

Maybe u are the nrom but I'm not 100% sure. I never go to $30/plate places...so I passed on that Groupon even though it might be useful for special occasion. but had like 10-15 friends who bought it and recommended it to me. Majority of them live above me in income level and do frequent $25-30/plate places. A couple had been to Noca once before and weren't that excited bout it but decided to check it out again because of the offer.

Most people use social media. That's not the same thing as being web-savvy. I wouldn't really know how most people sign up because I had no idea what it was until I read this thread. I've seen ads on Facebook but I've never had anyone mention it to me. I would assume it's word of mouth in one form or another but word of mouth extends to non-internet communication too. This seems like exactly the type of thing that would appeal to people who are not web-savvy since it's so simple to use.

There's not much that a restaurant can do to make it clearly stand out over others. If I wasn't willing to go there without the coupon then there's probably a reason for it and the reason is usually not because I'm just guessing that their food is bad. And if I was willing to pay full price then they've cost themselves money by letting me try it for cheap instead of just waiting for me to get around to trying it on my own.

Theres no use reasoning with people with warped views on social norms.

You're getting caught up in trying to define web savvy and missing my point. Groupon allows B&M businesses to have a dominant online presence, something most of these places desperately need and currently lack. So many restaurants make Facebook fan pages and twitter accounts to try and take advantage of social media, yet only get a few hundred followers at best.



Oh, I'm sure you've heard of every restaurant being featured on Groupon right?

Please tell me why you've never been to probably 90% of the restaurants in your city.

Groupon has plenty of deals for places that are less than $30 per plate. In fact, most restaurants featured are prob <$30.

So the only restaurant you've ever been to multiple times is your current favorite restaurant? What are you going to do when you run out of restaurants?

Groupon looks at it as the vendor supplies the product, groupon will pay them for it. If they don't supply the product they don't get paid. The fact that groupon got paid already is irrelevant.

i dont think max's views are warped..just not 100 % sure if his views vibe with the majority of the noca coupon buyers. Henry's views..yes i think they are little strange but to each his own

The restaurant industry has no need to have a dominant online presence because they only compete amongst themselves. If Groupon is not driving a lot more business into the restaurants (more than enough to offset their own cut of the profits) then they are hurting the industry rather than helping it. The only restaurants that are in desperate need of help in any form are the ones that don't win the word-of-mouth battle. Everyone knows what the best restaurants are and they tend to operate near capacity already. Any restaurant that has to rely on the word-of-mouth of a third-party is pretty unlikely to be clearly superior to those that use their own reputation to drive sales.

You are also overlooking the fact that the people who are most willing to try out new restaurants are by definition the ones who are least likely to become regulars at any specific place that they do try out. This is true regardless of whether a coupon was involved.

I pretty much only buy grouping for restaurants I know are good. Last time I used one ($30 for $60) I still ended up dropping over a hundo on the bill. I'd go there again without a groupon.

It was a restaurant I had been meaning to try anyway.

I don't think I'd do a groupon spa thing because the " actual value" seems to be massively inflated IMO.

Also massages get much better when you keep going to the same person. Getting a "half off" massage from a different person every time you want one is not a good deal

Restaurants do not need twitter accounts. Only marketing people think like this and it is a wrong way of thinking.

Yes.

Of the restaurants I would ever consider eating at yes. I don't eat sushi so have never been to the sushi restaurants. I don't eat most ethnic foods so have not been to those either but of the restaurants that serve food that I eat I have been to more than 90% of them. If we limit this to restaurants that have been in business for more than three years the answer would be 100%.

-------------

This is the Rice study on Groupon

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia/Gr...028%202010.pdf

42% of restaurants lost money by having a Groupon.

Many of the critical comments involved waitstaff having negative experiences and bad tippers.

The problem with this reasoning is that if a place was that good that they could impress someone enough to get them to return then they wouldn't have the space capacity to be able to accommodate a Groupon without either having restrictions on the nights it could be used or displacing and likely alienating their established clientele.

It is very difficult to think of a scenario where you have an amazing restaurant that is going to impress people so much that they are going to return yet the same restaurant is failing in the sense that it has the spare capacity to absorb 600-2500 new patrons over the next couple of months.

Actually no it isn't. It is very relevant. If a vendor sells 1000 coupons for $50 using the standard 50/50 split then Groupon gets $25,000 and the vendor gets $25,000 minus transaction costs regardless of how many people redeem the coupon. If it turns out that only 800 people redeem it how is it possible to now justify shifting $5,000 from the vendor's take to Groupon? Why should the vendor get less and Groupon more in this situation?

If it is true that Groupon keeps 100% of the funds for coupons that are never redeemed that is a massive scam. I find it difficult to believe Groupon keeps all the funds for nonredeemable coupons and a study of the massive GAP Groupon seems to imply that it isn't true but if it is then it is just another example of the horrible business practices at Groupon.

I agree with you, I meant to say "Is irrelevant to Groupon".

The only reasoning I can figure out is that groupon believes the customer is their customer, not the vendors. I also thought it may be that groupon may inflate numbers to make things look better than they are. But that's probably just my imagination.

I agree, I couldn't believe it either, it's possible my wife is just plain mistaken, or that she received bad information from her boss. However she swears that is the case.

It may be possible that the "deal" is negotiable and that is one of the things that can be changed, but who knows.