Storm in a Cup Cake: Channel 4 Reaches out to Sift.ie for Comment

When Groupon got pilloried for running a Cup Cake promotion that went awry, Channel 4 reached out to Shane Hayes for some perspective.

See the article here. My comments are below.

Shane Hayes founder of daily deal aggregator Siftie.co.uk, said the advantage to a business of a service like Groupon is that it costs nothing up front because Groupon covers all the publicity.

After that the success of the promotion is down to the business.

“It’s your job to convert these into repeat customers,” he said.

Mr Hayes said that Groupon works best when a business can use a deal to persuade customers to buy more than they normally would.

He added that they work well when the extra demand would not significantly increase your overheads.

Mr Hayes said businesses could get round the problems faced by Mrs Brown by putting a cap on a deal, but added that Groupon is often reluctant to add a cap, unlike rival sites.

But he said that in this case, it was probably just the wrong type of product for this particular marketing tool: “With the greatest respect to the lady, it is probably the worst thing you could sell on Groupon.”

S