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My personel opinion and experience fyi only. These are not guaranteed #'s but they are what I experienced.

If you ever want to increase awareness and your sales and are contemplating using one of these advertising services please read the following

They will first tell you what discounts will and will not sale. They will push you into the highest dollar amounts and discounts possible. Unaware with the whole process I reluctantly agreed to $10 for $20 and $19 for $40 deals. I told them over and over that I did not want to do the $19 for $40 deal period, but they insisted I had to for the deal to work. B.S. They said just try it out and if you don't like it cancel the deal. Well once the feature starts it only lasts for 3 days. Stopping it is not an option. You will receive 50-60% of the amount paid I.e. % of $10 and % of $19. No more than 20% of people who buy your groupon ever plan on returning unless you run another groupon. Most will ask when you plan in running another one.65% of the people that redeem them are extremely hateful and disrespectful people that are only there for the free stuff. If there are any problems with the way groupon presented you or worded anything the grouponer WILL be upset with YOU not Groupon even though you sold them absolutely nothing. Think your food is so great that this will not happen to you? Think again. I have spoken to several restaurant owners who had the exact same experience. It is ultimately your decision, but beware. The negatives outweigh the positives immensely.
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Can't speak for anyone else but me and Mrs. Que'n. We use a lot of 2 for 1 coupons (NONE from the Internet) and know we are trying someone else's food to determine if we'd come back. We are courteous and tip according to the original (pre-coupon) amount. Many times we find that the owners will have high $$ items, (probably to pay for the 1/2 off).

NOTHING brings us back better than GOOD FOOD, and a GOOD DINING EXPERIENCE. If ya got that, ya don't need groupon or coupon.
quote:
Originally posted by slowride:
You are the exception Imho. I will never buy one again. If I see one I want I will go pay full price.


I wish I had known you were planning this. I would have warned you off. It's fine for a service business where there is no material cost, but it is usually a money loser for any business that has costs(food). IMO you were exactly correct in your description of the clients it attracts too.

There are lots of sites on the net devoted to restaurants or other food service type businesses basically being put out of business by very "successful" Groupon campaigns. I know of several that I've consulted with that barely survived their Groupon experience, and a few that didn't.
I Did this one month after I opened which made it even tougher. I have 2 days left before they expire. Somehow I made it through it. the best part is when they tell you they live 45 minutes away and never come to your town. then order $40 worth of brisket only. I really enjoy that. I was naive, and learned a hard lesson. I will do everything in my power to make others aware.
Ok. I thought I was over the worst of it. I was very wrong. I went through triple my normal amounts today 100% for free. I can not even open tomarrow. I suggest you do this as soon as you can. It is really a great experience. You will find out your limitations quickly. The best part is a paying customer showing up with no Q to sell them because you gave it all away. Hurry and sign up. Who's first?
I'm sorry it ended on such a bad note. I definitely hope you regroup and recover.

One way you can work with the deal sites is to come up with a "special" just for them, like a packaged family meal that would be hard to compare to your regular menu as far as pricing is concerned. Then you mark it up so you can mark it down for the special. An example might be a Picnic catering package for 24 people for $24.95 per person, on sale for $14.95.

Speak of it in glowing terms and do something unique like roasting a pigs head or something equally unusual. "Foodies" eat this sort of thing up. Next, negotiate your split with Living Social. I use them some and they are taking just 20% now, but you have to dig your heels in. They will take 30% from anybody, even after they ask for 50%. People are catching on to them so you've got some leverage to work with.

In any case, IF you can get them to go with 20%, then from your $14.95 starting point, you'll get about $11.00.

It is jumping through a lot of hoops, but if you can figure a way to pull it off, it can attract new customers for catering jobs, and people do see your food at those jobs. So......
We have not really recovered, but we are starting our event schedule on Saturday. We also booked another 200 guest catering for the same client we catered 3 weeks ago. Daily vending is something I wish I never had to do again, but to pull the catering jobs and the preferred events we cant get around it. That is a great plan on the catering side of discount advertising. Generally catering clients are overly grateful for your services, and with a discount to boot they will be ecstatic. Plus we charge a mandatory 20% gratuity for all catering packages, so it will take care of the advertisers cut. I actually really like this approach. It could be very effective and pull in some decent cash and good clients quickly.
Thank you for the idea. I may try this in the fall when our events slow down.

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