Groupon Now
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Groupon Now, launched by Groupon in 2011, was a real-time local deals service: unlike Groupon's flagship daily email deals, merchants offered deals that could be used immediately. Groupon promoted it as an innovation example, reporting 1.5 million Groupon Now deals sold, but the category was retired when Groupon moved to an always-on, searchable deals format.
02 / Groupon Now FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors
Groupon Now underperformed because the product was pull (users must open the app) versus Groupon's successful email push; early numbers were described as pathetic, and LivingSocial abandoned a similar product.
BI: Now product 'doesn't work' as pull vs successful email push; users forget/won't open the app.
BI: early Now numbers described as pathetic; competitor LivingSocial cut losses on similar product.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Jeff Holden announced homepage/catalog redesign; the separate Groupon Now category will go away as always-on deals replace it (parent Groupon continued).
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Groupon launched Groupon Now in 2011 as a real-time local deals service with immediately redeemable merchant offers.
- 02
Groupon reported 1.5 million Groupon Now deals sold.
- 03
In 2012 Groupon retired the Groupon Now category as it shifted to always-on, searchable deals.