An article in Inc recently quotes a couple businesses that only ended up breaking even on their Groupon coupon. So the businesses are just hoping people come back for more with is less than guaranteed.
I would think that breaking even on a Groupon would be the desired result. The point of Groupon, just like advertising, is customer acquisition. It's really all about lifetime value of a Groupon acquired customer. Companies need to track that to really judge whether Groupon is a worthwhile investment, but if you break even on the initial Groupon, then the ROI has to be positive unless your product/service is super crappy.
Exactly. How can Groupon be worth >$1B if the value proposition for businesses (that is, their growth in repeat customers over time) hasn't been proven?
