Smart of them to respond quickly and swiftly, but the core issue of this specific case wasn't addressed. A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business, and by all accounts wasn't aware of the cap system which Andrew says "has always been Groupon policy to allow merchants" to have.
So the PR responses read wells to people who have already decided Groupon did no wrong here, re-enforces to businesses that there is a model that could work for them, but does nothing to address people who found the whole thing unsettling/distasteful.
"A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business"
I agree with you here. However, as someone who has been on the ad sales side of the equation, I can tell you that all sales are emotional and the more time you spend explaining to people how to properly price out the product the less likely they are to buy. Literally the more rational you make it for the person to buy your product the less likely they are to actually buy it, because the rational part of the brain isn't the part of the brain that buys stuff.
In addition, I'd argue that what makes advertising not-unethical is that the vast majority of businesses lose money on any given ad buy. If advertising was just a license to print money for all businesses instead of, say, the best 5% of businesses then it would be pretty hard to argue that advertising was making the world a better place. While Groupon may well have been at fault here, the small business owner does have some responsibility to understand how advertising works, what the best practices are, what asset they are trying to build, etc. If the business owner in question understood this then it wouldn't really matter that they didn't understand every last feature on the site. It sounds like her real problem was that the people coming into her store didn't like her stuff; the fact that she was losing money on every sale would have been a non-issue to begin with if this weren't true.
I have to agree that it is great that Groupon did something so quickly.
However, I read their entire post as a backhanded criticism of the business acumen of the owner of Posie's Cafe. "97% of businesses would use Groupon again... Groupon is a great resource for solid businesses... this guy sold 10,000 bagels no problem because he was prepared".
I am very much pro free market, so it is hard to me to fault Groupon for penning the deal (beyond a few reservations based on long term business). But it is easy for me to fault Groupon for what I read as a thinly veiled attack on the owner of Posie's.
Comments
Smart of them to respond quickly and swiftly, but the core issue of this specific case wasn't addressed. A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business, and by all accounts wasn't aware of the cap system which Andrew says "has always been Groupon policy to allow merchants" to have.
So the PR responses read wells to people who have already decided Groupon did no wrong here, re-enforces to businesses that there is a model that could work for them, but does nothing to address people who found the whole thing unsettling/distasteful.
"A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business"
I agree with you here. However, as someone who has been on the ad sales side of the equation, I can tell you that all sales are emotional and the more time you spend explaining to people how to properly price out the product the less likely they are to buy. Literally the more rational you make it for the person to buy your product the less likely they are to actually buy it, because the rational part of the brain isn't the part of the brain that buys stuff.
In addition, I'd argue that what makes advertising not-unethical is that the vast majority of businesses lose money on any given ad buy. If advertising was just a license to print money for all businesses instead of, say, the best 5% of businesses then it would be pretty hard to argue that advertising was making the world a better place. While Groupon may well have been at fault here, the small business owner does have some responsibility to understand how advertising works, what the best practices are, what asset they are trying to build, etc. If the business owner in question understood this then it wouldn't really matter that they didn't understand every last feature on the site. It sounds like her real problem was that the people coming into her store didn't like her stuff; the fact that she was losing money on every sale would have been a non-issue to begin with if this weren't true.
> because the rational part of the brain isn't the part of the brain that buys stuff.
i think you might also be admitting that most stuff isn't worth buying.
I have to agree that it is great that Groupon did something so quickly.
However, I read their entire post as a backhanded criticism of the business acumen of the owner of Posie's Cafe. "97% of businesses would use Groupon again... Groupon is a great resource for solid businesses... this guy sold 10,000 bagels no problem because he was prepared".
I am very much pro free market, so it is hard to me to fault Groupon for penning the deal (beyond a few reservations based on long term business). But it is easy for me to fault Groupon for what I read as a thinly veiled attack on the owner of Posie's.
yeah it read a lot like a pitch page...buy this diet plan: "omg omg this is an awesome diet, I lost 258 pounds in 1 week on it...you gotta buy it!"