Anyone do a Groupon?

if so, how did it work out?

Hi Gus -
 
Hope all is well...while I know you are asking about professional use, I use Groupon often from the consumer side. 
I watch for long enough expiration times that I don't feel rushed, local to me, special interest, mainly food.
I'm also interested in the deal...it needs to be something that gets me going.
 
 
 

lots of cheepos only spend the deal an dont come back check out the article in the tennessen.com sunday biz section.its good info.
tennnesean is the nash tn paper food people said it was a loss. it was front page in biz section

I have used group on as a consumer several times! It is a great way for me and my family to try a new place out (or visit an old favorite one).  We have found several new favorite places by using the coupon for a place we may not have typically gone too....
 
Guess it doesn't hurt to try it once and if it doesn't work or you don't like it, don't do it again! :) Good luck

I have two restaurants and we have done Groupons for both of them.  Out of all the offers etc, we have tried, these customers are more likely to return and visit us again.  Groupon's reach is huge and they do a good job of selling the offers.  You get 50% of the offer back from groupon (If you offer a discount of $10 then you get $5 for each groupon sold).
 
We are planning on offering another Groupon, now that it's been a year.
 
Things to consider.  Be very careful about the amount and the exclusions for your Groupon.  Also, be sure to develop an internal system to make sure people don't try to use the same groupon more than once--we have a great tracking system and no on has tried, but I am a cynical person by nature.
 
Good Luck.

As a consumer, I no longer bother with any of these deep-discount offers made by small businesses. I once bought one of those coupon books, then found getting the discount was a "tough pull" at small businesses. Large businesses, no problem; it was not coming out of the hired help's pocket. But either the employee on duty at the small business thought it was a scam and made me get out the meat cleaver to get the discount, or the owner felt obliged to get his money back by trying to upsell me or go for the "full load". The old adage "there is no such thing as a free lunch" still applies. But I realize the pros here want to know if it makes business sense for them to participate in these offers.
 
The funny thing is that I have never been able to find any unbiased studies documenting how groupon and its clones affected the bottom line of participating businesses. Since this is a food forum, I looked at the alleged Restaurant Case Studies on groupon's website for businesses. Lots of talk about how many groupons they sold and how much store traffic they generated, and how groupon helped them with the whole process etc. etc. but no hard numbers on how it affected their bottom line. We all know about cherry pickers.

First I ever heard of Groupon, thanks for the info.  I can't believe Pittston isn't a city they cover.

Don't feel left out.  In all of Illinois they only cover Chicago and Rockford.  At least in Pennsylvania they cover five cities.