Amazing on the part of the Groupon team. How does one turn down 6 billion dollars? Hopefully this is not a decision they will regret.
We’ve used Groupon for discounted hockey tickets and a few other items.
It’s hard to imagine that Google can’t penetrate a market for targeted coupons without having to buy Groupon.
So unless Groupon actually owned patents or copyrights that would prevent any other company from competing, this seems like a bad move. Google’s offer of billions of dollars shows Google wants to invest in this business.
Google has a database of pretty much EVERY internet user’s deepest darkest secrets — exactly what sites they visit. They can use this to deliver coupons well-targeted to people who will use them. How hard can it be for them to get up to where Groupon is now?
It seems that a billion dollars would buy them what they needed, and I can’t see Groupon winning the battle in the end, not with Google re-directing ever search for COUPON to the google business, rather than Groupon.
It’s not like Groupon was the only company competing in this business, or that they had already acheived a critical market penetration.