For all its twists and turns, ups and downs and iterations and permutations, Groupon's CEO still sees his company pretty much the way it originally started.
"We think of ourselves primarily as a local e-commerce company. We aim to achieve the kind of revolution that Amazon did, but only for local businesses," Andrew Mason said in an onstage interview in San Francisco, according to socialtimes.com.
Many have pointed out that Groupon’s lifeblood, daily deals, have gotten more lackluster or at least less enticing, and while that’s obviously a subjective thing, I wonder if this telegraphs Groupon’s intention to use Groupon Goods as a means to more aggressively push locally made wares? I’m just speculating, but that might make sense given the company’s recent move to launch Groupon Payments, a service that offers “local businesses the lowest rates on credit card transactions.”
More evidence pointing to this as a possibility? In a letter to shareholders earlier this year, Mason wrote:
"Today, Groupon is a marketing tool that connects consumers and merchants. Tomorrow, we aim to move upstream and serve as the entry point for local transactions."
Otherwise, speculation elsewhere is running high on Castle Groupon — one of the more interesting, albeit negative, looks comes via Business Insider, which has a deep examination on the whole “Is Andrew Mason going to get fired?” thing that happened just a few weeks ago.
As of press time, Groupon’s stock is at $4.72.
David Wolinsky is a freelance writer and a lifelong Chicagoan. In addition to currently serving as an interviewer-writer for Adult Swim, he's also a comedy-writing instructor for Second City. He was the Chicago city editor for The Onion A.V. Club where he provided in-depth daily coverage of this city's bustling arts/entertainment scene for half a decade. When not playing video games for work he's thinking of dashing out to Chicago Diner, Pizano's, or Yummy Yummy. His first career aspirations were to be a game-show host.
