Check Out the New Groupon and Fine Print

[kate83675]

I received an e-mail from Ben about the "HHH Manifesto" in which he asked me to relay to everyone the comment Lina made are her words, not his. His comments about the "Manifesto" are in the thread Cho started about her e-mail to him and his response to her entitled HHalloween Sale Debacle.

I posted on the Groupon comments asking for clarification about the "abuse" also.

[fafnir]

Thanks, kate. Good to know it's not coming from HH.

[paelaf]

I'm sure there is a lot of groupon abuse from resellers. I mean, we KNOW there is one particular reseller who brought a sh*tload to the Kapow sale and then listed the items for her own profit. Regular customers buying and using groupons...I don't see how that is abuse ( I mean they did encourage us!), but I can definitely understand why it isn't good for HH. As web customers, we get the best deals. I don't think many of us are paying retail for any of their products. And now add to that these groupons? Seems like they're loosing out on a lot of money, especially if we just go ahead and buy groupons for all of the purchases we intended on making for the season. I have no idea why they didn't foresee this. OF COURSE we're gonna try to save money! But I get why they're now restricting it.

[merrygold]

Thanks Kate for clarification of whose choice of words it was to use the term "abuse."

In my opinion, the Groupons are a sunk cost/liability for HH so it shouldn't matter whether we applied them towards an already heavily discounted item or a regular priced item. The credit to the customer exists regardless.

ITA that it sucks that Ebay resellers got their hands on them. However, the Evilbayers exist to haunt sample sales anyway so they are not a new phenomenon.

[kate83675]

Am I the only one who doesn't see why the concept of current customers, lovers of HH, would be buying as many Groupons as they could possibly finance would be surprising?

I know my DH doesn't give much consideration to the consequences of a lot of actions but come on! I guess I assumed it's tied to the Y chromosome and that someone somewhere at HH or Groupon would have foreseen a possibility of people other than new-to-HH-customers buying these?

I only bought 4 and I know some of us bought a lot more than that! Why is that so

[fafnir]

Originally Posted by paelaf

I'm sure there is a lot of groupon abuse from resellers. I mean, we KNOW there is one particular reseller who brought a sh*tload to the Kapow sale and then listed the items for her own profit. Regular customers buying and using groupons...I don't see how that is abuse ( I mean they did encourage us!), but I can definitely understand why it isn't good for HH. As web customers, we get the best deals. I don't think many of us are paying retail for any of their products. And now add to that these groupons? Seems like they're loosing out on a lot of money, especially if we just go ahead and buy groupons for all of the purchases we intended on making for the season. I have no idea why they didn't foresee this. OF COURSE we're gonna try to save money! But I get why they're now restricting it.

Wow, Paelaf, I missed the re-seller who went to the Kapow sale and used Groupons, then re-sold at a profit. It's technically not abuse, but... yuck.

[kate83675]

Thought I'd post Lina's answer over here too, does this sound like a new tune for Groupon?

If it wasn't meant to be used "Groupon after Groupon" why weren't they limited in the first place??


Suzanne,
Groupons are meant to give our subscribers an incentive to try or go back to our featured clients. This is something we encourage and has become a great thing for both our subscribers who get discounts and our feature businesses that get an opportunity to brand their company in an innovative, effective way.
As far as abuse, Groupon is not meant to create a system or pattern where the one person may use Groupon after Groupon. We want our subscribers to have a great experience when using their Groupon and hopefully (re)discover something new that will add enjoyment to their lives.
We have told subscribers in the past that HH Groupons are unlimited but this is a new addition to the fine print due to the above.
I am happy to hear that you have been able to take advantage of the previous HH Groupons, but am sorry to say this Groupon is for new clients only.
Warm regards,
Lina
Groupon

[carlottalyn]

So the Groupon days are over, at least for us current customers. Sigh...

[paelaf]

Originally Posted by fafnir

Wow, Paelaf, I missed the re-seller who went to the Kapow sale and used Groupons, then re-sold at a profit. It's technically not abuse, but... yuck.

Yeah, it's yuck. I might have been exaggerating when I said sh*tload. I wasn't there so I don't *really* know anything...just basing it on what people said they saw and the samples we saw listed.

[siouxie]

Originally Posted by kate83675

Am I the only one who doesn't see why the concept of current customers, lovers of HH, would be buying as many Groupons as they could possibly finance would be surprising? I know my DH doesn't give much consideration to the consequences of a lot of actions but come on! I guess I assumed it's tied to the Y chromosome and that someone somewhere at HH or Groupon would have foreseen a possibility of people other than new-to-HH-customers buying these? I only bought 4 and I know some of us bought a lot more than that! Why is that so

totally agree - it's like those entertainment coupon books that my son's school is selling for a fundraiser. If they have 4 coupons for your favorite restaurant, wouldn't you use them?

Buying and reselling here seems annoying only in that it can mean that another customer may lose out because someone is hoarding....it is exactly what ticket brokers do - have people get as many tickets as they can for their agency and then resell at sky high prices. That really annoys me, but there are some ways to control it - the vendors/artists can put a cap on how many tix/pieces of merch each person can buy.Maybe you can only buy 10 items at a sample sale? I don't know, maybe that's a stupid idea. I think that the bottom line is even someone doing that at a sample sale isn't getting the stuff free - using a groupon means they paid hh up front. And, most of us don't do that. and, that person won't be successful if people wont pay her sky high prices (assuming that's what they are.)

I'm just rambling, but i'm irked.I'm mostly irked at Ben and his tone in his response. As far as I can tell, he is looking at these problems as anecdotal, and he's not listening to the real problems with shipping and credit delays, and acting like our requests for enhancements to their system are just that - enhancements that are really not necessary to running an ecommerce site. The tone is the worst though....really makes me want to dump my groupons and move on.....

[bag-mania]

I have not bought a Groupon up to this point and have not really wanted one. Now, I want one because I know I can't have it. Darn reverse psychology!

[lulu3955]

Questions:

So can I buy groupons as gifts. (I bought some past groupons as gifts but those are restrictionless about newbies so I can use those ones)

If so, How can I tell which groupons have the restriction and which ones don't?

[jennirane]

^^ Sounds like a question to post to Lina on the Groupon discussion...

And someone should ask her if they were never meant to be used one after another, why did she encourage us to buy so many the first go-rounds?

[missangelina]

Absolutely. I bought one per sale, then at the last minute of one sale, I wanted one more, called Groupon and was walked through the process of creating a new Groupon account so I could buy a second Groupon. Seems like it would have been a perfect time to explain, "These are to be used one at a time!" WTH?

Oh well. No biggie.

[kate83675]

I looked at a response from Lina where she says it's fine to alert our friends to Groupons but she says, "the only suggestion I can make is to share the link with them" so if we do want to make a gift of them I'd say, "here's the link, go buy it yourself" and the person would have to purchase a Groupon themselves?

Groupon needs to make it clear to their customers they want to offer deals through them that the people buying Groupons just might want to enjoy the discount/opportunity more than once and to suggest placing some limits on the offers right up front. NOT blaming the customers after Groupon has flogged the coupon and actively encouraged customers to buy, buy, buy. Yeah, that's great for Groupon but the customer is left holding the bag in the end and it's not going to make a good impression of Groupon either if that happens.

ETA - I bought one at a time in the first offering but ended up with two from that one, then bought one each in two more sales. There never was a time I saw a limit on how many I could buy.