Groupon buys FeeFighters to support merchant community

March 23, 2012 3:58 PM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

Three-year-old business services provider FeeFighters has been acquired by daily deals giant Groupon for an undisclosed sum.

“Our goals have always been to help small businesses run more efficiently, and by teaming up with Groupon, a pioneer in local e-commerce, …

Groupon’s new Scheduler feature has potential, but two very big IFs

March 19, 2012 6:27 PM Rakesh Agrawal
Rakesh Agrawal

Groupon today launched a wide beta of its Groupon Scheduler product. The Scheduler is an online calendaring tool that allows service businesses such as spas, yoga studios, contractors and photographers to take reservations online. It’s open to all merchants, not …

How Amazon can be a friend to small businesses

March 19, 2012 12:37 PM Rakesh Agrawal
Rakesh Agrawal

I’ve been testing out the Kindle Fire tablet for the last several weeks. At $199, it’s a tremendous value. It’s no iPad — I just upgraded to the new iPad as well — but it provides a solid base-level tablet …

Groupon’s whale problem

March 7, 2012 8:19 AM Rocky Agrawal

Guest Post

I’ve long suspected that Groupon has a whale problem — that a lot of its revenue comes from a small number of customers. New research from ForeSee indicates that this may be the case.

A lot of businesses have whales. …

Daily deals inspiring repeat business, study finds

March 5, 2012 2:09 PM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

Daily deal providers such as Groupon and LivingSocial are often criticized for driving low-quality business to merchants, but these young companies may, in fact, be purveyors of loyal customers.

Ninety-one percent of web shoppers who redeemed a deal said they …

Redpoint eVentures launches to help budding Brazilian tech industry

March 5, 2012 5:00 AM Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff

Redpoint Ventures and BV Capital eVentures announced today that they are teaming up to launch the oh-so-cleverly named Redpoint eVentures, a new venture capital fund for Brazil’s tech industry.

The firm is based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and will back …

In its third acquisition this month, Groupon buys Uptake

February 28, 2012 2:39 PM Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff

Daily-deals company Groupon has purchased travel site Uptake for an undisclosed amount of cash. This deal marks the third acquisition for the newly public Groupon in February 2012.

Groupon reportedly paid over $10 million for the company, which helps you …

A 1-star review of Yelp’s advertiser agreement

February 20, 2012 11:14 AM Rakesh Agrawal
Rakesh Agrawal

Yelp’s advertiser agreement combines some of the worst elements of Yellow Pages, Aol and cell phone agreements. As with many such agreements, it’s very lopsided in Yelp’s favor. (See my analysis of the similarly lopsided Groupon merchant agreement.)

Yelp charges …

Groupon snatches up local-data startup Hyperpublic for better deal targeting

February 17, 2012 4:15 PM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

In what could be the deal of the year, Groupon has snatched up a little-known startup to help it do the dirty work of targeting deals to subscribers.

The newly public deals behemoth has bought two-year-old, New York-based Hyperpublic for …

Leaked emails call Groupon’s European CEO a “slavedriver”, echoing complaints in U.S.

February 17, 2012 11:03 AM Ben Popper
Ben Popper

Groupon employees have alleged abusive working conditions, breach of contract, and a boss (Groupon’s Eastern European CEO Daniel Glasner) whom they described as a “slavedriver”.

Before we dive into the specifics, it should be noted that these emails were excerpted, …

Groupon to launch $30/year VIP program — but will anyone actually pay?

February 16, 2012 11:02 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Groupon is in the process of testing a new VIP service that will cost $30 per year and give users early access to deals, easy refunds, and more, according to a Business Insider report.

The company reported poor-to-mixed results with …

Groupon keeps moving the goalposts, leaving investors scratching their heads

February 9, 2012 11:29 AM Rakesh Agrawal
Rakesh Agrawal

Groupon reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company this week and blew away its numbers — in the sense that it stopped reporting key numbers investors need to assess the health of its business.

Based on generally accepted …

Groupon reports net loss in first earnings, still doing great if you don’t count what it spends

February 8, 2012 1:30 PM Ben Popper
Ben Popper

There were a lot of doubters who said Groupon was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme looking to cash out with an IPO. Groupon just reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company, and did better than many on …

Groupon acquires e-commerce ‘big data’ startup Adku

February 6, 2012 3:07 PM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Group deals company Groupon has acquired e-commerce data firm Adku for an undisclosed price, the startup announced today.

Adku provides a service that attempts to “optimize” a person’s shopping experience by providing product suggestions on sites like Zappos, eBay, and …

Choose your own sale with LuxeYard, launching today

January 23, 2012 9:01 PM Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff

Flash sale and daily deals sites have gained a lot of popularity in the last year with Groupon, Gilt, and Fab.com bringing consumers discounted products and services.

LuxeYard, a new flash sale site focused on luxury home furnishings and decor, …

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is grumpy, takes on critics at DLD

January 23, 2012 3:56 AM Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is grumpy. Donning jeans, a white collared shirt and black blazer, and shucking the goofy boy demeanor he’s known for, Mason took the stage at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich today and candidly shot …

Look out Groupon: Nearly 800 daily deals sites folded in the past 6 months

January 19, 2012 8:21 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Watch your backs Groupon and LivingSocial. A new report suggests daily deals sites are loosing steam quickly, with 798 daily deal sites worldwide shutting down in the second half of 2011.

Even since before Groupon went public in November, analysts …

Five tech industry predictions for 2012

December 31, 2011 12:37 PM Vivek Wadhwa, WashingtonPost.com

The past year in technology was pretty wild.

The really big Internet IPO returned and the massive venture capital funding bubble inflated, which seems difficult considering that the venture capital industry is far smaller than it was three years ago. …