Why Groupon Should Regret Google Offers

Google Offers and Groupon Not Playing Ball

Most business dream of building up a business so attractive so unique and so valuable that a huge corporation comes along and makes you a fantastic offer.  This sounds like a dream come true, I know if this happened to me I would never see an English winter again . I would put the money I made from the deal to start another fantastic business. I am sure the majority of entrepreneurs dream of the big approach, the sale and the life after.

Well this did happen to Groupon but unfortunately there was no happy ending.

Billions Of Dollars Offered

Google made an offer to buy Groupon for $5.3 billion dollars at the end of 2010. Guess what the people at Groupon rejected it what were they thinking?

Did they think that Groupon’s model was unique and could not be created by another business? Wrong we now have hundreds of discount coupon sites starting up. In fact Groupon clone scripts can cost you less than $300.

Maybe the thinking behind rejection was that they were so big that no other could replace them in the market place. Wrong Google Offers is now  backed with all the power money and infrastructure of the world largest search engine, they can match Groupon in a short period of time

Maybe they thought lets upset Google and get some more money out of them. Wrong every business has its price, Google must have known the cost to recreate the model and pushing hard could make the deal not viable.

Google will integrate Google Offers with Google Wallet so you can pay with your smart phone and show the shopkeeper the coupon on it. I’m sure they will eventually integrate Google maps, email, and search as well.

Groupon Profits versus Living Social

Groupon’s gross billings totaled $154 million in November 2011, up 6 percent from the $145 million it collected in October, Yipit estimated.

LivingSocial’s gross billings declined 5 percent to $52 million in November, versus the previous month, Yipit also estimated.

Gross billings are a closely watched measure of how much money Groupon and other daily deal companies collect from the offers they run with merchants. A chunk of this money is shared with participating merchants and excluded from revenue.

What will the story be next year? I predict that Google Offers will be Groupons major competitor taking bigger market share than Living Social.

Author Nick Marr

Twitter NickCMarr