Groupon is a popular group-buying website where they act as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. The company has grown rapidly and was established in Sweden in the year of 2010. The aim of this study is to investigate if businesses that have been marketed in Stockholm and that have been co-operating with Groupon have been affected in terms of customer loyalty and profitability. Furthermore the study also examines consumer’s opinions, purchase behavior and loyalty against Groupons business partners. The results showed that salon/spa in comparison with other industries received very high added sales (67 %) and had a large number of loyal customers (42 %). For the retail industry, 33 % did not receive additional sales and 67 % have not received customer loyalty. Tourism/travel and other industries believe the campaigns to be very successful and they have received good customer loyalty and sales. The companies who did not consider their campaigns successful had problems with the communication between themselves and Groupon. Finally, 49 % of the consumers turned out to be loyal to the businesses of which they had used daily deals.

Groupon was founded in 2008 and became the first official social couponing site, attracting widespread attention from many individuals. By putting a new spin on an old marketing strategy, Groupon was able to alter the manner in which consumers viewed coupons. Their social business model took network marketing to a whole new level by capitalizing on the rising trend of social media and online communities. In addition, the company’s rapidly growing subscriber base has prompted many retailers to engage with Groupon in an attempt to generate higher brand awareness. This professional report will explore the influence that Groupon has on retail brands by providing an analysis of two case studies that yielded positive and negative experiences with Groupon. / text

This thesis deals with a new trend and a marketing tool -- collective buying. The aim of the work is to describe this trend from two different perspectives and to provide a short-term forecast. In the theoretical sections, we give overview of the history of collective buying, basic terms from the field, and the current situation in the Czech Republic and worldwide. We continue with sections describing the operations of a specific company from the field, BonyBony, which entered the market in September 2010. Author of this thesis has been employed in the company since its founding. In these sections we describe basic operation of the company, marketing tools used and advantages over the competition. The future of companies dealing with collective buying is uncertain; many of them are in red numbers. The last part of this work therefore tries to project the short-term forecast for this company using expert view based on the data acquired from a survey.

In my final thesis I focused on modern tools in marketing communication such as buzz marketing, guerilla marketing and so on from theoretical and practical point of view. The main part was about a phenomenon, which appears in the Czech Republic in the past few years -- english called twangoo. Not only between them, but also entrepreneurs and customer on this specific market, I was doing a questionnaire research, which helped me draw final conclusions.

En ny trend inom internethandeln är företeelsen av så kallade rabatt- och upplevelsesajter. På den svenska marknaden är Groupon marknadsledande rabattsajt samtidigt som LiveIt anses störst inom upplevelseförmedling. Affärskonceptet – att marknadsföra priserbjudanden eller upplevelser och sedan hänvisa konsumenter vidare till leverantörer – har tagits efter av en rad aktörer och den nya trenden får antas fortsätta en tid framöver. Det faktum att den aktuella typen av förmedling är relativt ny har lett till en osäkerhet kring vilket ansvar rabatt- och upplevelseföretagen har gentemot konsumenter. Inte sällan använder de sig av varierande affärsupplägg vilket bidragit till ytterligare oklarhet. Det saknas direkt tillämplig tvingande lagstiftning och företagen begränsar ofta, genom mer eller mindre långtgående friskrivningar, sitt civilrättsliga ansvar. Syftet med förevarande uppsats är att undersöka vilket civilrättsligt ansvar som företagen har gentemot konsumenter vid dröjsmål och fel i vara och tjänst. I uppsatsen, som inledningsvis diskuterar innebörden av termerna kollektiv shopping och gruppköp, redogörs för de tre affärsmodeller som det marknadsledande rabattföretaget Groupon använder sig av. Dessa affärsmodeller ligger sedan till grund för de diskussioner som förs i arbetets analysdel. Rabattföretagens ansvar visar sig vara beroende av vilken affärsmodell som tillämpats vid försäljningen. Företagen kan dels betraktas som återförsäljare alternativt kommissionärer vilket leder till ett fullständigt civilrättsligt ansvar, dels som handelsagenter med underliggande fullmakt vars enda ansvar är att ta emot och vidareförmedla reklamationer, dels som en oreglerad typ av mellanman som enligt dagens gällande rätt enbart ansvarar för lämnad information gällande de vouchrar som företagen säljer. Detta sistnämnda ansvar är visserligen dispositivt men förefaller utgöra en allmän rättsgrundsats varför det ligger nära till hands att betrakta friskrivningar från lämnad information som oskäliga. Ett tänkbart sätt att stärka konsumentskyddet inom det aktuella problemområdet är att utvidga den så kallade förmedlingsregeln i konsumentköplagens inledande paragraf samt att eventuellt införa en liknande regel även i konsumenttjänstlagen. / A new trend within e-commerce is the phenomenon of deal-of-the-day and event websites. The market leaders in Sweden are Groupon (deal-of-the-day) and LiveIt (event). Their business concept is to promote price offers or events, and then refer consumers to merchants. This concept has been copied by a number of other e-commerce providers and this trend is likely to continue. The fact that this kind of mediation is relatively new has led to an uncertainty as to what responsibility these companies have in relation to the consumers. Furthermore, the companies use a variety of business models which increases the uncertainty even more. There are no directly applicable mandatory provisions, and the companies often reduce their liability by using more or less extensive disclaimers. This essay aims to investigate which civil liability the companies have in relation to the consumers in post-purchase situations (relating to delays and lack of conformity). In this essay, which initially relates to the meaning of the terms ‘collective shopping’ and ‘group buying’, the three business models that Groupon utilize will be explained. These business models form the basis of the following analysis. The liability of the companies is proven to be dependent on which kind of business model that the purchase was conducted according to. The companies can be considered as retailers or commission agents who both have full liability, or they can be considered as commercial agents with a proxy whose liability is limited to receive and mediate complaints, or they can be considered as some kind of unregulated middleman which, according to existing law, only has a responsibility for information given in the marketing of the sold vouchers. The liability of this unregulated middleman is indeed optional, but still considered a general legal principle. A disclaimer from that liability could be considered unfair. One possible way to enhance consumer protection within this area is to expand the mediation rule in the first section of the Consumer Sales Act. An additional possibility is to introduce a similar rule in the Consumer Services Act.

Groupon is a popular group-buying website offering daily deals and has experiencedfast growth. It has attracted amounts of imitators and they sprang up all over the world.We treat this phenomenon by taking Groupon as an intermediary executing coordinationbetween merchants and customers in the group-buying activities. To see the particularpractices of Groupon in operating transactional and relational coordination mechanisms,we collect diverse group-buying forms from the earliest buying club since 1860s tillnow and make comparison among various involved intermediaries. After that, five maindifferences are identified including the nature of initiator, product and service selection,pricing mechanism, frequency of deals, network and relations, which either contributesto reduction of transaction cost or maintaining the interactive relationships. Throughthese collection, comparison and analysis, we have new insights into the features ofGroupon’s group-buying coordination and accordingly implications for future electronicintermediaries.

In recent years, online discount coupons provided through deal-of-the-day websites have grownrapidly. Perceived as a positive opportunity for local merchants to promote themselves in themarket, a mutual exchange occurs as consumers are able to simultaneously benefit from promotionsand discounts on services and products. In fact, studies and research (the literature) can unite on the notion that online price promotionshave an immediate positive impact on sales. However, there is less agreement regarding repeatpurchasing effects. Promotion usage effects may exist in which repurchase rates are negativelyaffected by the fact that a promotion was used to make a purchase. In that respect, the problem wehave identified concerns the customers likeliness of returning to the local merchant after redeeminga coupon from the online discount coupon website. With regard to this matter, the purpose of our thesis was to describe and analyze the factors that influence the likelihood of repurchase after a transaction on an online discount website. In orderto fulfill our purpose, we conducted a quantitative study with a deductive approach on thecustomers of Groupon Stockholm. The empirical findings of our study show that price, quality and service are important factors for repurchasing, while the location of a business has an indifferent role. We further conclude that the customers appear to be loyal to the online discount websites and respectively, the benefits gained from these websites rather than the local merchants and businesses. Thus, we round up this thesis by including various managerial implications with respect to the local merchant’s perspective and strategies of improving a relational customer relationship.

Recently, there is a new advertising model created by Groupon. Its major attractions include high discount and e-coupon as transaction object. In addition, it is presented as an online group-buying business model and usually has a limit on transaction volume. Due to the prosperous growth of Groupon advertising model, this study explores what factors affect the performance of Groupon advertising model based on the empirical data and literature review. Based on the literature review and preliminary analysis of the collected empirical data, we proposed seven factors which may affect the performance of Groupon advertising model. They are discount, price, limit on transaction volume, urban income, population density, threshold of transaction and product category. These factors were included as independent variables in the regression model. The results indicated that discount, urban income, population density and threshold of transaction have significant effects on advertising performance. Among them, the threshold of transaction has the most significant impact. It indicates that setting a threshold of transaction will facilitate the transaction volume. In addition, the results also indicated that different product categories result in different performance. However, the population density has no significant impact on the advertising performance.

This thesis specializes in the concept of daily deals on the Internet, therefore in relatively new form of sales promotion. Thesis is charting the market on which portals of daily deals operate; to find reasons for quick expansion of this marketing tool in the Czech Republic. The goal of the thesis is to introduce the concept of daily deals through the Internet, to chart the market of daily deals in the Czech Republic and in the whole world and, above all, to create recommendations for people, who are interested in this type of e-commerce. The part of the thesis is research of customers' perception of such portals. The research is the base for examination of the defined hypothesis and simultaneously is the base for identification of the main risks while selling through the portals for daily deals. Findings from the research are used for processing recommendations for companies or entrepreneurs, who are interested in using this marketing tool.