Groupon announced today that it has revamped its GrouponWorks.com site for merchants. The company says it has been redesigned to better showcase merchant successes, as well as Groupon's toolkit of marketing products and services. It features cases studies and video testimonials like the one below.
Building Your Business with Groupon: Sylvan Learning Center from Groupon on Vimeo.
"GrouponWorks.com ties together Groupon's entire suite of merchant products, services and resources and helps business owners select the tools that meet their needs," said Sanjay Gupta, VP of Merchant Marketing at Groupon. "Best of all, visitors can listen to merchants—in their own words—share unique accounts of how working with Groupon had a positive impact on their businesses."
Interestingly, the GrouponWorks redesign comes at a time when a story about a business shutting down, and blaming Groupon is getting some attention. The Atlantic reports that Back Alley Waffles in Washington D.C. is blaming Groupon for making them wait three months to get paid (three months from the opening of the restaurant), and ultimately fostering the business' demise. The Atlantic's Rebecca Greenfield reports:
In April Craig Nelsen opened up Back Alley Waffles in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington and did what lots of new small business owners do: put a deal on Groupon offering $16 worth of waffles for $8. The way this works is that people pay Groupon their $8 and then take a certificate to redeem at Nelsen's waffle house. The money comes later from Groupon (which usually takes a 50 percent cut). The promotion was very popular. So popular that there are many reports that customers would show up to a sign at the front door saying they had run out of Waffles and the staff was running out to Safeway to get more ingredients. But unlike other businesses who have been blindsided by their Groupon deal's popularity, Nelsen was more than happy to make more waffles, but he ran out of money.
If you go to BackAlleyWaffles.com, you're greeted with a message telling you that it is "close indefinitely due to the bloodthirsty business practices of Groupon. Waffles are now $450 each by appointment only."
It would seem that Groupon does not work for everybody. That said, Groupon has its own side of the story with how that whole Waffle deal went down. Groupon also has 525 success case studies on the site.
http://www.webpronews.com/groupon-reimagines-its-grouponworks-site-but-does-groupon-really-work-2012-07
