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sorry if this is very basic question but since I haven't used any group buying website myself I don't know how do they earns money? To be more clear:

  1. Does sites like groupon charge merchants in a "per promoted deal" or e.g. fixed monthly charge?
  2. or maybe they have a subscription fee for visitors and buyers? (I know this can't be the case!)
  3. any other way?

Thanks for your time :)

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This seems off-topic for this site. – TimJ♦ Mar 24 '12 at 21:57

2 Answers

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Revenue share is based on the individual strategy of the deal sites and Groupon tends to stay around 50/50 with others ranging from that to 80/20 (more for the merchant).

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Hi Karuna, thanks for your reply. There is an unclear point for me: Do they split the whole transferred amount or just the actual profit for merchant? – ashkanr May 29 '11 at 12:06
@ashkanr see wikipedia, if i remembered correctly, the actual transfered amount. correct me if i'm wrong – Pacerier Sep 22 '11 at 3:51
up vote 2 down vote

Groupon is taking a percentage on the deal. Let say that you run a business and want to use the Groupon service. Imagine that you sell guided visit to a museum. The price is 50 $ per visitor. On Groupon the price will be 25$, and you will earn 10$ (the rest is for Groupon).

The numbers here are for the purpose of illustrating the general idea, the actual numbers can be quite different.

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Thanks a lot sylvainp. Now I understand the model. Do you have any numbers of the percentage Groupon takes? I couldn't find a number on their website. – ashkanr Apr 25 '11 at 7:57
In Europe the numbers are negotiated directly with a groupon sales guy for each deal. – Sylvain Peyronnet Apr 25 '11 at 9:37

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