Group buying site Groupon is growing so fast that its “deals of the day” are attracting the attention of big brand names like the Gap. One small business owner believes this growth is making Groupon “greedy,” so much so that it chose not to honor a signed contract because the agreed upon margins were too small. This is his story.
In January, small business owner Gregroy Yonke used Groupon to run a Featured Deal that gave buyers half off his Phoenix, Arizona Entrees to Go guided cooking sessions. Yonke couldn’t have been more pleased with the results — Groupon delivered new customers who became repeat customers, he says.
After taking the summer to explore working with a bevy of new Groupon clones, Yonke got a call from Groupon indicating that the company was interested in having him run another featured deal. And so, Yonke put off his other marketing plans for another go-around with Groupon, because in his mind, “Groupon is bigger than all the others combined.”
Talks progressed and eventually the terms of the new deal were decided. On September 7, Groupon e-mailed Yonke a merchant agreement and asked him to reply to the e-mail with “agree” in the subject line. Yonke did so on September 14, believing this meant there was now a contract in place guaranteeing him another featured deal within four to six weeks time. That time frame had been discussed in the e-mail exchanges, but was not, in fact, included in the agreement.
Then, on October 11, Yonke was notified that his deal had passed through the “vetting” stage, meaning it had been approved for scheduling. Yonke was anxious to view and approve the deal copy, but his Groupon representative wrote to inform him that the deal would be prepared after it had been scheduled.
This is when things started to go awry. On October 19, Yonke e-mailed his rep to once again press to find out the date on which his deal would run. Here’s the response he received, with confidential information redacted:
“After further deliberation, we have decided that we are not going to be moving forward with the rate confirmation for Entrees to Go. After running the numbers, we don’t feel it is the right move for us at this time. I appreciate your interest in running again, and unfortunately, we were not able to make it work on our end for a second feature. I wish you the best moving forward.”
Astonished, Yonke e-mailed back asking, “On what basis are you making this decision?”
Groupon’s response was as follows:
“With the margin in place, we will be at a loss running this feature. It simply is not in the best interest of Groupon to run Entrees to Go at this time. Per the rate confirmation, Section 1.3, ‘Groupon will offer the Vouchers for sale on dates in its discretion.’ We are choosing, with all due respect, not to move forward at this time. I appreciate your patience and apologize that it doesn’t work at this time.”
In a conversation with
Yonke also shared that at one point Groupon pressured him to “sweeten the deal,” which he agreed to do, but only if Groupon agreed to take the same dollar amount — i.e. not the same percentage of sales — as agreed to in the initial deal. Groupon, however, wanted the same percentage, and that was just something “I couldn’t afford to do … I was already losing money on the other deal,” he said.
Earlier today, Yonke was again contacted by Groupon, but this time offering him a personalized deal, and not a featured deal. Personalized deals are only sent out to select, more targeted, audiences in the Groupon subscriber base, but Yonke was only interested in the featured deal, which would have gone out to all of Phoenix.
For Yonke, this Groupon deal represented the entirety of his marketing strategy, and it was the only way in which he was planning to attract new business at the Entrees to Go store he owns with his wife Dorothy.
Yonke believes he was overlooked because of the small stature of his business. He points to the fact that the featured deal running in Phoenix today is for Coldwater Creek, a national retailer with a much more prominent brand name. He says, “I get it … they can do a featured deal for the Gap and make $11 million in one day.”
The jilted small business owner reached out to Mashable to share his experience primarily because his marketing plans for bringing in end-of-year business have been stymied. He’s currently offering the deal through the FAQ portion of his own website, but admittedly does not have reach to a large audience.
Given Groupon’s immense growth this year, it follows that the startup will have disgruntled customers from time to time — and we’ve seen this before. While Mashable has confirmed the legitimacy of the e-mail communications between Yonke and Groupon, we caution the reader to remember that this is just one small business owner’s story.
Still, we felt this story to be of particular interest because it suggests that Groupon is shifting the focus of the featured deals away from the small business owners they once catered to. The smaller businesses, instead, seem to be destined for relegation to its personalized deals product or the do-it-yourself Groupon Stores.
Prior to publishing, Mashable reached out to Groupon for comment, and we’re told the company is now looking into the matter. We’ll update this post when there’s an official statement from the company.
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Next time you hear an economist or denizen of Wall Street talk about how the "American economy" is doing these days, watch your wallet.
There are two American economies. One is on the mend. The other is still coming apart.
The one that's mending is America's Big Money economy. It's comprised of Wall Street traders, big investors, and top professionals and corporate executives.
The Big Money economy is doing well these days. That's partly thanks to Ben Bernanke, whose Fed is keeping interest rates near zero by printing money as fast as it dare. It's essentially free money to America's Big Money economy.
Free money can almost always be put to uses that create more of it. Big corporations are buying back their shares of stock, thereby boosting corporate earnings. They're merging and acquiring other companies.
And they're going abroad in search of customers.
Thanks to fast-growing China, India, and Brazil, giant American corporations are racking up sales. They're selling Asian and Latin American consumers everything from cars and cell phones to fancy Internet software and iPads. Forty percent of the S&P 500 biggest corporations are now doing more than 60 percent of their business abroad. And America's biggest investors are also going abroad to get a nice return on their money.
So don't worry about America's Big Money economy. According to a Wall Street Journal survey released Thursday, overall compensation in financial services will rise 5 percent this year, and employees in some businesses like asset management will get increases of 15 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back to where it was before the Lehman bankruptcy filing triggered the financial collapse. And profits at America's largest corporations are heading upward.
But there's another American economy, and it's not on the mend. Call it the Average Worker economy.
Last Friday's jobs report showed 159,000 new private-sector jobs in October. That's better than previous months. But 125,000 net new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the American labor force. So another way of expressing what happened to jobs in October is to say 24,000 were added over what we need just to stay even.
Yet the American economy has lost 15 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. And if you add in the growth of the labor force -- including everyone too discouraged to look for a job -- we're down about 22 million.
Or to put it another way, we're still getting nowhere on jobs.
One out of eight breadwinners is still out of work. Most families in the Average Worker economy rely on two breadwinners. So if one out of eight isn't working, chances are high that family incomes are down compared to what they were three years ago.
And that means the bills aren't getting paid.
According to a recent Washington Post poll, more than half of all Americans -- 53 percent -- are worried about making their mortgage payments. This is many more than were worried two years ago, when the Great Recession hit bottom. Then, 37 percent expressed worry.
Delinquency rates on home loans are rising. Distressed sales are up as a percent of total sales.
Most people in the Average Worker economy own few shares of stock, if any. Their equity is in their homes. But with all the delinquencies and distressed sales, the housing market has a glut of homes for sale. As a result, home prices are still dropping. So the net worth of most Americans is still dropping.
And even though interest rates are falling, most people in the Average Worker economy can't refinance their homes. They can't get home equity loans. Banks don't want to lend to the Average Worker economy because people in it are considered bad credit risks. They still owe lots of money, their family incomes are down, and their net worth has fallen.
And according to the Reuters/University of Michigan survey of American consumers, expectations about personal finances are at an all time low.
Inhabitants of the Big Money economy are celebrating Republican wins last week. They figure financial regulations will be rolled back, environmental regulations will be canned, the Bush tax cut will be extended to the top 1 percent, and it will be harder for workers to form unions.
Inhabitants of the Average Worker economy aren't so sure. The economy has been so bad they're angry at politicians. They showed their anger at the ballot box. They took it out on incumbents.
But if nothing changes in the Average Worker economy, there will be hell to pay.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
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The question comes up often. Many people have been burned by SEO Services, but many have also been rewarded by SEO Services. Like any business transaction or purchase you should only spend your money when you feel comfortable. Your comfort zone should pull from various dependencies, such as how well do you know this business, how long have you been doing business with this person or entity, what is your first impression, how do you personally feel about this person or entity ability to provide this service, and how well have you done your homework.
The truth about SEO services is that it is normally not hard work, but that doesn't mean its easy. It still takes time, dedication, effort, strategy, technique, method, skill, and experience to perform quality SEO services. Anyone can use SEO services because it is within your reach to learn, but not everyone can apply sensible strategy to make SEO work. That is why SEO engineers are needed to accomplish the almost impossible, but the question is how do you know you are making the right choice and not overpaying for SEO services?
I can honestly say for the most part SEO service providers are on the up and up who want nothing more than to do professional business and provide quality SEO services. Identifying every shady SEO service may not be possible, but I have some recommended advice which should help anyone get a fair and quality rate for SEO services.
- Set yourself a "realistic" marketing budget and goal
- Shop around
- Don't buy until you feel comfortable
- Remember "cheap does not always mean better"
- Ask for references / referrals / portfolio
- Verify references / referrals / portfolio
- Ask for statistical growth and progress reports
Set Yourself a Realistic Marketing Budget and Goal
This simply mean do not kid yourself and think you can pay $200 and overnight you will make thousands. Instead, create a budget depending on your marketing needs, competitive industry, projected outcome, and length of time. If you are looking for your website to rank in the Top 10 search engine result page for a particular keyword or keywords then expect to pay in the thousands, often times tens of thousands, for quality, professional, and reliable SEO services, almost always depending on the competitiveness of the keyword. If you want to rank in the top 10 for the keyword "Google", this in most cases impossible, but I am sure there are some SEO companies who will accept the challenge, but will charge in the thousands if not millions to attempt this insane marketing goal.
Shop Around
Find the most appealing SEO services and compare those to other competitive SEO services. Don't settle for "cheap" or "inexpensive", but settle for "effective" and "strategy". Anyone can do SEO work, but not everyone can improve results using SEO services. This is because, SEO is about technique and strategy. It's not about just throwing thousands a links around the web and sitting back waiting for the explosion. Its actually a lot more complicated than that, as it is about having strategy, technique, and competitive edge. You must find SEO services which live by this principle and can offer you the strategic road map you need for success.
Don't Buy Until You Feel Comfortable
You should always feel comfortable with entrusting your money into an SEO service provider paws. If you have special needs such as you want to sign a contract, you want a specific pay schedule, or you have any questions, make sure you get answers and are comfortable with the projected outcome then move forward. I personally suggest getting a contract which outlines the projected outcome and any other bullet points, then also exploring the consequences or possibilities if the projected outcome is not met.
Remember "Cheap Does Not Always Mean Better"
This is a buyer beware notice. When someone offers $20 SEO services or even $200 SEO services, I would say "buyer beware". There may be a handful of highly skilled SEO providers who can offer you SEO services at a discount or for extremely low rates, but most of the time these providers either do not know their service worth or know exactly what they are doing, but may have had a lucky streak. You will have to pay top dollar or aggressively, yet still affordable for quality, strategic, and experienced SEO services. SEO engineers is what I like to call them. These are SEO's who understand the SEO concept, who pioneer SEO methods, and who don't always follow the trend, but know the trends.
Most of the SEO engineers are not going to be cheap, but well worth every dollar spent. If you take into consideration other marketing and advertising platforms, such as television broadcast advertising, print advertising, large tradeshow/fair booth advertising, etc. internet marketing and search engine optimization cost peanuts compared to these other advertising methods and have a farther audience reach. SEO services can easily cost between $5,000-$25,000, it can even be much more than this, depending on your needs, but this is far more inexpensive and cheaper than other advertising platforms. So, next time you think that SEO service cost too much, think about the other methods of advertising and their rates, along with return on investment (ROI). SEO services come out on top every time when compared against these other advertising platforms.
Ask for References / Referrals / Portfolio
Any SEO service provider should be able to point you to their qualifying work. SEO service providers should be able to present you with affectionate websites which they have performed SEO work on. This can even be the SEO service provider personal website, they should be able to point you to their rankings in the search engine as well as some result driven SEO work within the site or across the web.
Verify References / Referrals / Portfolio
Verifying information is not always easy or accomplishable. You should attempt to reach out and verify what you can. If a shady SEO business was going to scam, then I am sure this is where they would start, with testimonials. I suggest verifying what you can, but don't get overwhelmed with referrals because it may be the shady SEO business giving self praise. I actually have some good verification tips, but that's another article all within itself.
Ask for Statistical Growth & Progress Reports
The SEO service campaign should include periodic progress/performance reports so you can track your website progress. Tracking your website progress is important in many ways. First, it tells if the SEO engineer is doing their job. Second, it tells you if the SEO methods, strategy, and technique is working or not. Third, it tells you how well the search engines are reciprocating your SEO efforts. And lastly, it tells you how much progress is being made and at what rate. All of this advanced reporting information and trend tracking can give you an overview of your website potential while giving you the opportunity to design or redesign your landing pages to increase your return on investment (ROI).
Okay, to wrap it up, just be sure you stay out of shabby internet neighborhoods and when making any online transaction, do your homework first. Also, remember "cheap does not equal better". Think about it, would you rather pay in the thousands to one SEO company for quality SEO work, which will produce results and increase your website overall performance or would you rather pay cheap $200 to many different SEO's who don't ever really give you the results you deserve. If an SEO engineer can increase your website sales and exposure by 80% without your site ever reaching the top 10 search results then you still got a good deal. This is the effect of skilled and experienced SEO services. The only difference between your website and the websites in the top 10, is those websites have SEO engineers working for them who understand SEO.
About the Author Ant Onaf is the owner & founder of AntOnaf.com (http://www.antonaf.com), a provider of professional and quality SEO services. AntOnaf.com offers affordable SEO services as well as custom SEO packages to fit your marketing needs. Ant Onaf ingenuity, dedication, and passion for internet marketing & technology has made him an monumental icon across the World Wide Web. Article Source: |
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