Groupon Coupons Review

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You’ve probably heard your friends or family members talking about Groupon deals or coupons recently – you may have even gotten a Groupon gift card for Christmas.

The local deals site is growing in popularity; Google actually offered to buy the company and similar sites like Living Social and Social Buy are popping up with daily deals.

I had been interested in Groupon and was keeping my eye out for any amazing deals. Recently, a local bowling alley offered a Groupon discount of what was equivalent to 50% off retail prices, and I bought. My wife and I will soon be enjoying 2 games of bowling a piece with shoe rental for only $10.

How can you get deals like these in your city? Read on.

How Groupon Works
For those not in the know, Groupon is an extremely popular group buying website. The company works with local businesses to offer big-time deals to the subscriber’s to Groupon’s e-mail list. (Getting on the list is free; you can also use their phone app.)

Local businesses use Groupon to offer amazing deals — only one deal per day for your area — in hopes that the massive number of users that get their e-mails will become customers.

To entice you to take the deal these businesses offer discounts in the 50% off range. You’ll see a lot of “buy a $50 gift certificate for $25” type offers to get you to physically come in to their local location and buy something. You save money by participating in the deals that are interesting to you. The only cost to Groupon is whatever you spend on their targeted offers. There is no subscription fee.

Best Groupon Deals Nationally

Groupon specializes in offering local coupons for businesses in cities across the U.S. but it has also partnered with national brands to offer amazing deals across the country.

The biggest of these deals by far occurred last year when Groupon offered $50 gift certificates to clothing retailer Gap for $25. How big of a deal was it? Almost half a million users snapped up the gift certificates for a potential savings of over $11 million, now that’s a lot of coupons.

They don’t offer these coupons regularly but when they do you might want to try and get in on it because they’re often a good deal.

Best Groupon Deals Locally

The beauty of Groupon is it connects local consumers with local small businesses. The business is taking a chance on potentially bringing in hundreds or thousands of new customers. Even if the discounts are sold at an expected loss the business can turn a profit by giving those customers an amazing experience and earning repeat business.

One of the best local deals offered was in the Chicago area: a local spa offered massages that retail for $84 for only $20. That’s a 76% discount, and 3,200 customers purchased the coupon. The shop had to add additional staff to cope with the new demand, but the owner is considering his first Groupon experience a success.

In my local market of Knoxville I’ve seen a similar deal from a spa: a $75 service was offered for $25. That’s a 66% discount and a heck of a deal if it is a service you would use even without a deal.

How to Sign Up for Groupon

Signing up for Groupon is simple.

Step 1: Visit the website and it should automatically detect your current city. (Note: your city is probably detected based on your IP address. If you are logged in from work it may show where your corporate IT connection is located.) If it detects the wrong city you can choose from the drop down box.

Step 2: Give Groupon an e-mail address you want the daily deals e-mailed to.

You’ll start receiving Groupon deals on a daily basis. You’ll need to create an account with a password and add a credit card if you decide to buy one of the deals. You can access the same account if you have a smartphone that has the Groupon app available to it.

Of course Groupon coupons are only a good deal if you buy deals you would have bought without a discount. Just because a local business is offering a 50% discount it doesn’t mean you need to purchase something every day. But if you can maintain control of your spending it’s a interesting concept that’s kind of fun and can save you money.

Kevin Mulligan is a debt reduction champion with a passion for teaching people how to budget and stay out of debt. He's building a personal finance freelance writing career and has written for RothIRA.com, Discover Bank, ING Direct, and many others.

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