The group buying website first appeared in the United States (Groupon), which was established in November 2008. Today, the company owned by the website has 126 employees, but it achieved breakeven within 7 months, with a profit margin as high as 30%.

Sales are expected to reach US$100 million in 2010. Because of this, Groupon has just received US$30 million in financing from Accel Capital, NEA and other venture capital investors, and the company's market valuation is US$250 million.

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Users are rushing to grab the products or services offered by Groupon every day, such as dining, spa, skydiving and golf.

It’s unbelievable that this website is online, with one item a day and a “flash sale” for a limited number of people. As long as you register on the Groupon website, you will receive an email from it every day, which will provide you with restaurants, hot springs, bicycle shops, and movie theaters in your area.

offers, such as using a $50 coupon for a $75 dinner or buying a bleacher seat at a Chicago Cubs game for one-third off.

There are few specific discounted products among these projects, but they are mainly in the service industry, such as SPA, skydiving training courses and outdoor activity services such as golf, skiing and rowing. Most of them are priced at 40-40% off.

Provided to consumers, some are even 10% off, which is different from some similar websites - items offering 20% ??off and 10% off also appear on the latter's website, and gradually evolved into advertisements, which are not very attractive.

Groupon provides users with only one project every day, and there is a time limit, which naturally makes it much more attractive.

This kind of opportunity always seems to be particularly exciting, but if you want to get it, you still have to gather enough people. On Groupon's website, when a certain group buying product is launched, it tells users the discount ratio, number limit and

Deadline——Only when the reserved number of people is reached, it is possible for everyone to enjoy the discounted price; if even one person is missing, the transaction cannot be carried out.

Most projects need to accumulate around 75 to 90 items before they can be sold, but strangely, it seems like they are sold every day. Some projects don’t seem to have much discounts, but the number of people signing up will still exceed the threshold————

Perhaps it is Groupon's strict limit on the number of people who can buy in a group that makes users more enthusiastic to mobilize their own interpersonal networks. Many people even put this information on Facebook and Twitter to invite friends to buy together.

An interesting example is a heavily discounted "skydiving training course" in Chicago. It originally cost US$229 per session, but now only costs US$128. After the group price, which was almost half the discount, was released, 1,600 people signed up within one day.

This skydiving training institution originally only did business for 6,000 people a year. Users didn't seem to care that the quality of service they received was only one-fifth of usual. After all, a skydiving instructor training 100 people a day might be a little dizzy.

rise.

Diligent salesmen discover that the more people buy products from various places, the greater the discounts will be. Merchants usually mention the concept of "group discounts". During the off-season of the industry, or on days when the situation is bleak, many merchants are willing to provide corresponding discounts to win over customers, but the problem is

, where to find so many consumers?

Groupon took the initiative. Most of its 126 employees are salesmen, located in 26 major cities such as New York, Chicago, Washington, and Los Angeles. Their task is to find those local consumers who are interested and profitable.

Higher merchants negotiate a huge discount on a certain product or service, use it for group purchases, and sell it on Groupon.

The diligence of sales staff may be the key reason why Groupon broke even within 7 months. They based on localized consumption information mining in various cities, fully mobilized the needs of local consumers, and also met the needs of merchants--maybe they

All of them receive ultra-low base salaries and ultra-high commissions, which is why they have such great motivation.

Can the three-party win-win model be replicated?

Groupon's business model is to exploit the mentality of netizens to obtain larger discounts, prompting them to interact effectively through the Internet, and spontaneously gather enough consumers for merchants in need, and itself obtains platform service fees, but Groupon's

The ambition is not small. The commission ratio is between 30% and 50% each time, leaving little profit for the merchants. Why would they accept it?

The first is the precise selection of projects. Most of the costs of restaurants, SPA, and training institutions are fixed. What changes is the time cost. It is better to fill the idle time with meager profits. What's more, if the number of people who sign up in the end does not reach the merchant

According to expectations, Groupon will provide 24-hour free advertising to merchants on the website. For merchants, the worst-case scenario is a no-profit transaction. After all, using traditional advertising methods for promotion, merchants not only

Little information is known about the audience, and they have to pay a lot of advertising fees.

Therefore, according to the Groupon website, up to 95% of merchants are willing to cooperate with Groupon again.