A Month in the Life of Groupon

Groupon has become the latest Internet sensation, providing daily deals to customers in the form of discount offers for restaurants, ticketed events, appliances, services, and other items. We undertake a study of the economics of daily deals on the web, based on a dataset we compiled by monitoring Groupon over several weeks. We use our dataset to characterize Groupon deal purchases, and to glean insights about Groupon's operational strategy. Our focus is on purchase incentives. For the primary purchase incentive, price, our regression model indicates that demand for coupons is relatively inelastic, allowing room for price-based revenue optimization. More interestingly, mining our dataset, we find evidence that Groupon customers are sensitive to other, "soft", incentives, e.g., deal scheduling and duration, deal featuring, and limited inventory. Our analysis points to the importance of considering incentives other than price in optimizing deal sites and similar systems.Comment: 6 page

Growth And Implications Of Social E-Commerce And Group Buying Daily Deal Sites: The Case Of Groupon And Livingsocial

E-commerce has changed the nature of the value propositions that companies now offer to their customers. The convergence of content sites and social networks has resulted in emerging e-commerce business models. The group buying/local daily deals e-commerce platform represents the collective bargaining power that individuals can leverage to obtain daily deals on local products, services and “experiences”. These local discounted deals are distributed via e-mail and the websites of companies like Groupon and LivingSocial that have established themselves as the sector leaders. The convergence of traditional and electronic business models, as well as traditional and new business practices, are changing the face of global business as we know it. In this study, the authors critically reflect on the strategic management implications of the convergence of content, community and commerce in the form of social e-commerce and daily deal sites. The authors consider the implications of the rapid growth experienced by daily deal social group buying sites, in terms of strategy, and question its long-term value-creation. Future investors are urged to consider the long-term value-creation and not merely the short-term payoff of these sites. Merchants are urged to consider the practical implications of offering coupons on these sites for the day-to-day operation of their businesses

Study of China’s online catering market under the booming of online group purchasing

The purpose of this paper is to display the feasibility of the U.S. online catering business model applied in China’s market. First, this paper will investigate the Chinese catering dining reservation market, examine the Chinese consumer’s behavior, and analyze the business models of U.S. online catering companies. Second, this paper will study the current Chinese online group purchasing market and Chinese online catering Web sites. According to this information, this paper will find how to apply the well-developed U.S. online business model to the immature Chinese online catering market

Understanding the Impact of Service Reputation on the Online Group-buying Behaviors

It has been well recognized that vendors’ reputation plays an important role in e-commerce. As a popular platform for promoting the services or products online, groupon websites have developed various reputation systems to assist the customers in making their purchase decisions. This paper performs an empirical study to investigate the impact of service reputation on the groupon buying behaviors using data from a major groupon website in China. A set of service reputation metrics is developed to measure the service reputation for different service providers, and the groupon buying behavior is measured by the amount of users participating in the corresponding collective buying activity. Correlation analysis is carried out to find out the relationship between the service reputation and the groupon purchase behaviors. Our research indicates the necessity for an improvement for the current service reputation systems of the groupon web sites

Visualization of Online Deals

This project identifies the impact of online deals and coupons on the life of people. The basic idea is to find the trend in the sales of these deals and this project would be helpful for companies, restaurants and dealers who are trying to sell coupons to popularize their product. The final output of the project would be a timeline graph with the deals displayed based on the month of their sale. Information like the original price, deal price, discount and number of coupons sold will be displayed in a pop-up window when a deal is selected. Different colors are used to differentiate the different types of deals. A pie chart depicting this information for various US states is created which provides a summarized view of the deals. This way, an overall picture about the deals sold for a particular month can be obtained

GAAP: An Analytical Study of Financial Accounting Standards

This thesis is comprised of a series of case studies covering various principles and standards of financial accounting. The thesis was created throughout a single academic year and the case studies are ordered to follow the basic elements of a balance sheet. These case studies include financial statement analysis, income and asset ratios, statement of cash flows, accounts receivable, revenue and inventory recognition, depreciation and fraud, GAAP standards compared to IFRS standards, debt, stockholders\u27 equity, securities, revenue growth and regulatory issues, tax liabilities, and pensions and retirement plans. The purpose of this thesis format is to provide analysis for and within multiple areas of financial accounting. Most of the cases studies begin with an overview of the main topic of the study, followed by questions to be analyzed and answered. These questions ranged from creating journal entries to comparing companies\u27 financial performances. Many of the case studies involved a heavy usage of Excel for creating tables, financial statements, and comparisons. Usually, the case studies also contained an analysis section of questions, which left more space for user interpretation in the answers to be provided. Because these case studies are based on established financial accounting standards, there are not necessarily any new findings. Rather, each case study is a reinforcement of individual accounting principles. The case studies confirm that there is a necessity to the existence of these principles, and their usage is based on logical thought and established facts that have become commonplace in the field of financial accounting. The thesis was also a tool to hone critical thinking and research skills. It allowed users to gain proficiency in Excel, among other technologies, such as the accounting codification website. It reinforced the basic concepts of theoretical accounting while allowing users to apply this knowledge to contextualized problems. In summary, this thesis, as well as the corresponding class taught by Dr. Victoria Dickinson, was an extremely valuable experience for those of us entering the accounting world. We were able to strengthen our learning in other accounting courses because this class subjected us to different types of studies, analyses, and concepts