

Groupon Horror: Bakery must make 102,000 cupcakes - pagliara
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/groupon-bakery-102000-cupcakes

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mrrasputin
I fail to see what the issue is. Companies need to specify how many groupons
they are allowing to be sold when in negotiations.

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theDoug
Agreed. These things are covered in depth when setting up a Groupon, and
Groupon has a pile of resources to help a business prepare to deliver what
they're offering.

These stories pop up all the time, though, and the press keeps gobbling them
up. I'm no fan of the company, but it's easier to paint Groupon as the villain
than the individual business owner who didn't do the math of running their own
business properly.

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patio11
At the risk of stating the obvious, someone with a business that has 4k
monthly turnover in cupcakes probably enjoys making cupcakes but is not
necessarily an expert in industrial scale capacity planning. Groupon inverts
the laws of physics for her business. Customer acquisition is no longer hard,
gross margins are no longer $2 a cupcake. A part of me sympathizes.

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dusing
It looks like they did 75% off of $40 leaving them with just $5 after
Groupon's cut. I don't know how that would ever work with all the labor needed
to make a good cupcake. They should have stuck with 50% off and a cap on
groupons. Poor planning by the business owner.

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r00fus
I have heard that Groupon's sales folk are incentivized to have merchants not
cap their offers, despite how bad it is long-term for both Groupon and the
merchant (if the merchant can't time-shift the purchase, say requiring
scheduling)... it's a quick win.

This is a logical pressure coming from the rushed IPO and lack of strategic
planning for competition.

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asanwal
I remain skeptical of Groupon, but this story seems to be more about an idiot
small biz owner than about Groupon being bad for business.

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chii
It just goes to show, if you don't plan and look out for yourself, others will
just take advantage of you. This is especially true in the business world.

