Groupon IPO shelved indefinitely or was it shitcanned?

[$5 submissions]

Remember when Group turned down a $6B buyout offer from Google? They were looking for an IPO exit strategy but it looks like it's not going to happen.... anytime soon.

Great coupon hope or just a way to easy to replicate model based on HYPE?

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...estors-1-.html

[Phoenix]

suckers...shoulda sold

[Horny Dude]

They should have taken the money and ran. There are so many coupon sites hitting the market now a days, the market reach for them is getting smaller.

[INever]

How hard is it to start a coupon site?

Greed got them, what a bunch of naive assholes.

[TheSquealer]

They have been publicly exposed for the pyramid scheme that they are. Now its going to be difficult, if not impossible to do an IPO.

[seeric]

Shit Canned.

The bubble is bursting on these sites for a few reasons.

[seeandsee]

there are too many local and other coupon sites in the game now, they lost the cake and hype and it will go down, but they will have profit

[Young]

They should have taken the money and ran. There are so many coupon sites hitting the market now a days, the market reach for them is getting smaller.

It's more than that. They have a MASSIVE call center to target small businesses, feet on the ground and a huge email database of potential customers. Reach is the least of their concerns.

The business model is what's going to fuck them over in the end. It needs to change, adapt, evolve.

Business owners get fucked. For most of them it's just not worth it. They are in most cases letting product/services out the door for 50% of it's worth. They are taking on all of the risk. Groupon takes on 0 of the risk. And all for what? A chance that some coupon hound might be a returning customer? How many visits will that customer have to make for them to recoup their money? Definitely more than just one follow up visit.

<cliches>Companies are starting to realize that not all that glitters is gold. In this case it's shit. The shit end of the stick. </cliches>

[JamesGw]

Not a fan of Groupon. I lol @ their IPO being delayed.

[My Pimp]

They should get profitable . And then make the ipo.

[epitome]

<cliches>Companies are starting to realize that not all that glitters is gold. In this case it's shit. The shit end of the stick. </cliches>

Only shooting stars break the mold.

Damn, Smashmouth was pretty insightful.

[Adam X]

another bs ipo.. if the underwriters didnt scam them.. they shouldve taken 6B and exited quick.

[seeric]

Restaurants rely on people coming in and consuming items NOT covered by the coupon, plus the repeat biz. The cheap people that use the coupons are champs at milking it for what they want. They don't even tip the wait staff. A very good friend of mine runs a fantastic 4 star restaurant and they HATE the Groupon thing. They tried it and it attracted an unsavory, lower class of people to their restaurant. As a restaurant you need to be careful to not decrease the image and draw your establishment works so hard to develop. For some, Groupon can work, but I'm sure there are more that experience exactly what my friends restaurant saw. You get what you pay for, or in their case, what they didn't get paid for.

[Paul]

They should get profitable . And then make the ipo.

How are they not turning a profit? Is all cashflow going back into the business for expansion?

[Fat Panda]

morons

8char

[Captain Kawaii]

Greed killed it. Never seemed right to me.

[Rodent]

As has been said a million times....should have taken the Google Money, whoever their advisers are/were are fucking stupid for turning that down and I bet Google is happy about getting turned town.

Title should probably read IPO shelved until they get their shaddy ass accounting fixed

[kane]

I like Groupon and Google Offers. I have found 6 or 8 cool new places to eat through those. If I get one that looks good the GF and I go give it try. A few of them have sucked, but there have been some really nice small, hole in the wall, kind of places we likely would have never found on our own.