http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...-1226006582495

Mediation failed to resolve a dispute over ownership of the trademark and the Groupon.com.au domain name.

I think Catch of the Day should just give up the domain and save them a shit load of costs, this is blatant domain squatting and makes all domainers look bad.

What are they thinking they will act like compete jokers and Groupon will buy their whole company.

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No ethics, and it's going to cost them.

On another, almost related matter... I feel good because today I alerted a company that their exact match domain was available on netfleet and it looks like they bid on it - and it only cost them $10.

Someone should do a news story on that... compare and contrast domainers/squatters.

Good on you - I hope they send you a bottle of something (they were first bidder so only paid reg!).

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It seems Groupon are finding it difficult in other countries

http://blogs.reuters.com/george-chen...r-groupon-com/

the gist of it is, Both Groupon.cn and Groupon.com.cn, its first and most obvious choices for a local web address, have already been snapped up by a Groupon.com copycat.

Meh, fuck Groupon... Who the hell turns down a 6 billion T/O offer? Google would have taken it to the next level.

They've been baiting Australians with fake macaroon offers for weeks now, poke fun of the situation in Tibet and some would claim have shady sales reps who get operators to put up prices and then discount them down.

So, let's not make out Groupon never put a foot wrong and Scoopon are the only ones doing shady things to protect their business (which I'd argue anyone here would do as well).

Sure Groupon has made some mistakes with their TVC's they have appoligized and now taken them off the air. I think the hidden message was that big dollars were donated to charity over that campaign, greenpeace was even endorsing it.

Scoopon just needs to pick up their game and offer something different to groupon. I think the tactics they are using to get a sale were just way too dodgy.

But yeah they knocked back the offer becuase they want to go it alone I mean they got 1 billion in funding this year alone and are making shitloads. Facebook knocked back mutli billion dollar offers now they are kicking ass.

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Thanks David. I doubt it though, they seemed quite sceptical of me when I called.

Facebook is way more sustainable and solid a business model than the Groupon model though. Surely a lot of this valuation is due to hype?

I mean these deal-a-day websites can't make much money can they? Maybe I'm missing something but do they work something like this:

• Site offers an amazing deal each day from say 100 retailers in different geographic areas. Each deal is 'Limited to 100 vouchers'
• Retailer's deal has to be special so let's assume the retailers break even at best on the deal
• However they get 100 new customers through their doors (who may come back) and great exposure on a big website
• Say they value the excercise at $1,000 for branding (which is heaps surely considering they get exposure on 1/100th of the website for one day)
• So they are happy to pay $500 to Groupon

So Groupon's total revenue is a lousy 100 x $500 = $50K

Tell me what am I missing? For that they have to promote the site, signup retailers, invoice etc. Isn't growth potential limited by the whole concept of focusing on one deal only? Couldn't the whole idea just fizzle out as people tire of seeing offers that really don't do it for them?

Anyway, annual revenue (based on these figures) is $18m. Net profit $10m at best (probably negative right at the moment because so new but once stable mayb that's it?)

Google's offer 600 x earnings and they said no?

Note: I haven't looked fully into this so maybe I've got it completely wrong. let me know!!

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Groupon sold $11 million worth of GAP vouchers in a single day last year! Not sure what their cut is, but even at 20% you're looking at $2.2m for the day.

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