Groupon

The company runs a two‑sided commerce marketplace where businesses list discounted offers and consumers purchase vouchers or goods. For services and travel, it aggregates local and travel deals, processes consumer payments as gross billings, issues redeemable vouchers, and shares revenue with merchants once vouchers are redeemed or refunded. This helps merchants acquire customers and drive utilisation of spare capacity without committing upfront advertising spend, while giving consumers access to discounted activities, services and travel.

For goods, it operates an e‑commerce catalogue of discounted physical products, recording product sales revenue and associated retail margins. Additional value is created through discovery (email, app and site placement), campaign management tools for merchants, and operational handling of payment collection, settlement and basic performance reporting. Travel offerings are enhanced through partnerships with established travel aggregators, with economics based on shared revenue from sold travel inventory.

Groupon is a United States‑based public company that operates an online marketplace for discounted local services, experiences, travel and consumer goods. Consumers purchase time‑limited vouchers or products via its website and apps, then redeem vouchers with participating merchants or receive shipped goods. The business is organised around Local, Travel and Goods offerings, using curated and algorithmically promoted deals to drive sales.

The company’s core counterparties are local businesses, national merchants and travel providers that list discounted offers to acquire customers and fill excess capacity, alongside consumers who pay for vouchers and goods. Groupon makes money primarily by retaining a percentage of voucher gross billings as commission, by earning retail margin on physical goods, and through partner revenue shares in travel. It offers merchants a pay‑for‑performance promotional model with no upfront campaign fees, handling payments, voucher issuance, and scheduled remittances to merchants after redemption.