Cape Town – Groupon South Africa will close its doors on Friday, it announced on its website.
The website that has offered discounted deals since 2010 said it “has wound down its operations in South Africa and we are unable to offer you any deals today”.
“For our customers, this means we will stop offering deals on our website from tonight,” it said. “All current vouchers bought will remain valid until the date stated on the voucher.”
Mybroadband reported on October 28 that Groupon South Africa might close, after the global entity announced it will develop a “streamlined country footprint”.
“The company has identified its go-forward country footprint to consist of 15 countries, down from 27 in the portfolio as of the second quarter 2016,” it reported Groupon as saying. “We are pursuing strategic alternatives and other options to exit the remaining countries, which we expect will continue into 2017.”
MyBroadband said a source indicated that “Groupon South Africa is likely one of the countries which will be exited”.
On Friday, Groupon said “we are sorry not to be able to offer you any great deals today, but thank you for your interest in Groupon”.
Customers uncomfortable with using their voucher can get a cash refund option, said Groupon.
“Goods purchased up to 4 November will be fulfilled,” it said. “Should you need to return a Goods item you purchased, please do such before 30 November.”
Groupon’s model was to offer daily deals on the “best things to do, see, eat, and buy in a variety of cities across South Africa”.
However, its business model has been taking strain globally.
Its financial results for the quarter ended 30 September 2016 showed a net loss of $35.8m.
The global entity also announced that it was buying LivingSocial, merging the two “daily deal” titans into one business.
Groupon itself has fallen considerably from its high-flying days as the New New Thing in tech stocks, explained Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle. “It went public at $28 a share. It is now trading at around $4. Its net income hovers around 0 percent, and the company announced further retrenchment around the same time it announced the LivingSocial merger.”
“What happened,” asked McArdle. “The short answer: Its business model was never very good.”
“Coupons can basically serve two functions: price discrimination or advertising. Price discrimination is when you charge different customers different prices based on their willingness to spend money. Supermarket coupons are great for this: People who are price-sensitive enough to spend their Sunday morning combing through the coupons and clipping them out get a discount, and the people who value their time more than their money pay full freight.
“Coupon shows make a lot out of the extreme folks who manage to go to the grocery store and pay nothing for a huge cart of groceries, but if you watch those shows, you’ll see those people have to go to extreme lengths just to get enough coupons to pull this off — badgering friends to collect their inserts, diving into dumpsters to get discarded newspapers — and then find storage space for 30 bottles of shampoo. Most people, even couponers, won’t bother.
“Coupons can also be a sort of advertising to new customers. Think of those coupon booklets they used to give college students, or those sent to people who’d just bought a house. Those folks don’t know the local restaurants, hair salons or pest-control companies yet; a coupon essentially earns you the right to compete for them as loyal customers.
“Groupon was a little bit of both. But it didn’t do either very well.”
SOURCE: MY BROADBAND
Mugabe: SA businesses in Zimbabwe are safe
Harare – South African businesses in Zimbabwe were safe and there was need for the two Southern African neighbours to improve the flow of investments in both directions, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday.
In his opening remarks at the official opening of the inaugural session of the Zimbabwe-South Africa Bi-national Commission in Harare, Mugabe said beneficiation and value addition of products offered the two countries vast opportunities for joint ventures and investment partnerships.
“I wish to assure South African businesspeople that their investments are safe here in Zimbabwe. We wish to see more South African investments here, as much as we wish to also see more Zimbabwean investments in South Africa,” he said.
He said businesspeople in the two nations, whose bilateral relations date back to the colonial era, should look beyond the exchange of goods and services, adding they should be empowered to compete in the national and regional markets.
Mugabe, however, expressed concern that a number of the 38 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding inked since the signing of the Joint Commission for Co-operation in 1995, had not been implemented.
Among these was the agreement in 2009 to establish a One-Stop Border Post at Beitbridge, which Mugabe said was gathering dust despite its importance to trade between the two countries.
“A major priority among these is to ensure the optimal operation of the Beitbridge border through the establishment of a One-Stop Border Post at this key bilateral and regional transit point,” he said.
South African President Jacob Zuma said the two countries should utilise the bi-national commission to provide a strategic impetus to drive their co-operation to higher levels.
“We must work together to explore a variety of issues to further deepen our co-operation,” Zuma said.
He said there was a need to pay particular attention to economic co-operation, adding that business stood ready to play their part if governments played their part in improving the ease of doing business.
Zuma said there was a need for the free flow of goods and to get rid of policy uncertainty that discouraged investors.
The two countries signed the Bilateral Air Services Agreement, with Dipuo Peters, SA’s Minister of Transport, and her Zimbabwean counterpart, Joram Gumbo, signing on behalf of their governments.
SOURCE: AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY