A Busy Month for Groupon (Highlighted by the Announcement of Groupon Now aka "2.0") and Opportunities in the B2B Market

Groupon Now will give mobile app users two choices: I'm Hungry or I'm Bored.

Since our last post Groupon has *deep breath*: been readying an IPO somewhere between $10 and $25 billion, dealing with the President and COO Rob Solomon abruptly stepping down, reportedly had revenues for February plummet [check that] increase, watched visits to Living Social approach their numbers for website visits (post Groupon Super Bowl fiasco), and announced a radically new business model called Groupon Now [aka "Groupon 2.0"].

Drawing an interesting boundary/context in which to analyze for a three month research paper is difficult enough without the company, entire industry even, keeps acting like a moving target! At least we can never complain about picking a boring topic.

We also had a great chat with the founder of Boss Rocket, a B2B group buying startup based in D.C. (and BU MBA alum). While it was interesting to talk about the differences faced in the B2B versus B2C space from a marketing perspective, comparing notes on Groupon and group buying in general was extremely helpful. Speaking with someone who is in the field creating these it's easy to see why group buying has proliferated - contracts can be completed fairly quickly when framing these deals as a win-win for both parties.

Assuming Boss Rocket targets small/medium businesses that have authority to purchase deals on impulse, do you think a "B2B Groupon" can be successful?

Fierce Competition Means Groupon Must Innovate to Stay Ahead

This is just getting ridiculous.

Seemingly every publisher (NYT) or distributor (Bing, Google, facebook) are getting into the group buying market (dare we say craze?). Our decision to move the traditional five year outlook for our paper down to two ("How should Groupon innovate to effectively compete in the group buying ecosystem in 2013?") seems like an eternity from now.

The greatest threat in the short term is buyer fatigue from all these deals. Hardcore users can buy only so many luxury products like massages and dining out coupons. For the masses, moving away from the "one deal per day" paradigm could decrease the excitement factor of the daily email. Interestingly, Groupon's next ad campaign will focus on adding fun and excitement to your week.

With the competition increasing by the day, we came up with the following abstract for our project: Within the $130 billion dollar local advertising market, Groupon has helped define the group buying model as a new means or promotional ad spending. The quick emergence of dozens of clones and potential for entry to this market by large traditional and digital media advertising organizations means that Groupon must extend beyond their current advantages in sales force size and brand image and broaden the scope of their platform and capabilities of their service for businesses and/or customers.

Stay tuned for our ideas for what features we believe Groupon need to add to their current email-based system. What do you think?