Buying & Selling on GROUPON

Maybe I am not supposed to mention the company's name as it is an established corporation BUT this is just my opinion and they are all true! (Not made up or pretense!) I never give two hoots about Groupon and its deals! Eventhough their updates illegally find their way into my mail box everyday! I deliberately click delete as they come in with a glance or sometimes without! I always believed that there is no good thing, in cheap thing & Groupon has to go and prove to me it is TRUE!!

From a Buyer's Point of View :

1. From my personal experience : There was this really good steamboat place we used to go before they discovered Groupon and its deals! The moment they started advertising on Groupon, the customers came in by truckload BUT the quality of their food and services dwindled by a 100%. To make up for the cheap price they are offering, the eat-all-you-can steamboat place cut their crabs, small lobsters prawn and white squid to name some! Their vegetables choices went down to a few cheap vegetables and the quality is just bad! We never went back ever since we "the normal price paying customers" were made to hear they got too many customers because a lot of donkeys from Groupon did not called up and make appointment before dropping in! "Do I care?!? Tell it to them!!! So Goodbye! We are not coming back"
2. From my own experience : Well out of the blue, I am feeling smurfified and went online and bought the iPhone set for what they claimed to be cheap! I later found out that it was just overprice! But I consoled myself that at least I get to choose the color! Because if I were to buy it from the mall at MYR9 cheaper I get only white color!  Before I bought the deal, I asked the seller when can I received the item? He replied that once the deal end, delivery will commenced! The deal ends before Raya which is at 17th August 2012. I should have received my item already BUT little did I know there is clause that says "If we ran out of stock, it will take another 2 more weeks to get our stocks and therefore your item will arrive 2 weeks later!"(Well fine! I add on the Raya week as free! And now I am still waiting for my goods! I checked only 50 people bought the deal! Does that means you do not have enough stock?!?)
3. From worldwide news : I wouldn't want to mention our well loved fast food chain! What happened when they advertised on Groupon? They learned their gravest lesson and set a head-start example to all fast food restaurants out there, to never ever ever spoilt their already established reputation by tarnishing them on Groupon!

1. People who advertise in Groupon are basically cutting profit to 0% when they do so! Why sell when you are not making?!? It might be easier to get customers this way BUT by selling your items close to cost price or at cost price is NOT the way to get customers! In such a way you would have kill other sellers who are "just doing our business" the normal way!
2. By selling at cheap cheap prices! One is actually doing a brand a big damage, including good brands! Last I checked when I was buying "my item" online! They are selling a TV at half price? Why would Samsung do that? (Ok maybe after losing its tele-communication patent law-suit to its competitor, they need to!)
3. By selling on Groupon as well one's company reputation may take a big hit, as you gain too many customers too soon! Although one of the clauses in advertising in Groupon requires us, sellers to get an extra employee to run the errand BUT how many of us will do? With profit cut up to half or more, is there an allocated budget for another employee? Think about it? 
4. Groupon requires a certain stock level before you start advertising with them! For small business, the amount is quite overwhelming! What if the sales vouchers total up to less than the stock amount? We are forced to swallow the remaining inventory ourselves when the deal ends! It will ran the business to ground if this is the case!
5. Plus keep in mind, deal hungry customers are all over the Internet! They will want the best of all quality and yet pay less so as a seller we couldn't actually satisfy that isnt it? So we are forced to shut most of the customers up and then what happened to our customers based? End up in nothing at all! Sad but true! 
6. The list goes on and one and I can think of them as we go... Just that now is dinner time so I shall stop!