Many moons ago my mother used to shop at a Cash & Carry. It seemed a bit dodgy for our family, albeit larger than the average 2.4 kids, to be frequenting a store designed primarily for business customers, buying at wholesale rather than retail prices. But somehow we had our ticket to ride and it felt good to be buying at a big fat discount, even if it meant buying ten times the usual quantity of any given product!
Nowadays, the likes of Costco and cut-throat competition among supermarkets have brought bargain basement prices to the masses (obviously, I'm not talking about Brazil now). Online, we have companies like Groupon, which effectively hand the buying power of businesses directly to consumers. Group buying websites have sprung up everywhere, yes even in Brazil.
But this blog post is just to issue a word of warning about Groupon, based on my experience of the company in the UK. Last summer, when hearing about it, I was excited to try it out and did so on a number of offers, some of which I used and some of which I gave away as presents.
The ones I used included a hairdresser that had a list price of £105 but was reduced to £30. For this I was supposed to receive the usual wash and cut but also some kind of head massage. Not normally one for fancy-priced headwork, I couldn't resist indulging in a bit of cheap luxury. Sadly, the reality was nothing of the sort. A pleasant but unimpressive young woman fiddled around with my scalp in a feeble approximation of massage and the cut itself was pedestrian. I noted that the hairdressing salon was new but seemed woefully understaffed to cope with a flood of Groupon voucher-clutching customers.
P tells me that Peixe Urbano, Brazil's rival to Groupon, has had similar complaints relating to local hairdressing offers.
I gave two beauty salon vouchers to my mother as a birthday present. She duly booked appointments for herself and my father. But the company went out of business and another was asigned by Groupon to honour the vouchers. Long story short, this new company ended up refusing to deal with my mother, blaming her for rude behaviour towards its staff. She, a trained lawyer, has plenty of evidence to show it was in fact the other way round and that the rudeness and attempted character assasination came from them and was aimed at her. She is now cosidering taking her case for compensation to the Trading Standards Office.
In all of this Groupon showed itself to be woefully immature. Its attitude boiled down to "Nothing to do with us, sort it out between yourselves." This is a company which hopes to float on the stockmarket for a multi-billion dollar valuation, much of which is based on its supposed value as a "brand".
After I got involved, Groupon finally offered to reimburse us the cost of the vouchers, and on further complaint, a goodwill gesture of £15 was declared. I made it clear that this was derisory and more of an insult to injury than anything constructive.
Since I've been in Brazil, I've seen plenty of Groupon Brazil ads but the name has lost its lustre. It suffers from the widespread modern marketing malaise of wanting all of the upside and none of the down. When things go well it takes credit for being such a powerful brand, but when they go wrong, well, nothing to do with us !
The amount of stress, upset, disappointment and wasted time in the sorry saga of my mother's gifted Groupon vouchers demands that, at the very least, the company and its disgraceful third-party, should offer a sincere apology. But this, apparently, has not even occurred to them.
Technology may be changing the world, but technology divorced from intelligent and decent human behaviour is not worth very much. When it comes to Groupon and all such newfangled middlemen, keep in mind that most ancient of warnings: Buyer Beware !
Nowadays, the likes of Costco and cut-throat competition among supermarkets have brought bargain basement prices to the masses (obviously, I'm not talking about Brazil now). Online, we have companies like Groupon, which effectively hand the buying power of businesses directly to consumers. Group buying websites have sprung up everywhere, yes even in Brazil.
But this blog post is just to issue a word of warning about Groupon, based on my experience of the company in the UK. Last summer, when hearing about it, I was excited to try it out and did so on a number of offers, some of which I used and some of which I gave away as presents.
The ones I used included a hairdresser that had a list price of £105 but was reduced to £30. For this I was supposed to receive the usual wash and cut but also some kind of head massage. Not normally one for fancy-priced headwork, I couldn't resist indulging in a bit of cheap luxury. Sadly, the reality was nothing of the sort. A pleasant but unimpressive young woman fiddled around with my scalp in a feeble approximation of massage and the cut itself was pedestrian. I noted that the hairdressing salon was new but seemed woefully understaffed to cope with a flood of Groupon voucher-clutching customers.
P tells me that Peixe Urbano, Brazil's rival to Groupon, has had similar complaints relating to local hairdressing offers.
I gave two beauty salon vouchers to my mother as a birthday present. She duly booked appointments for herself and my father. But the company went out of business and another was asigned by Groupon to honour the vouchers. Long story short, this new company ended up refusing to deal with my mother, blaming her for rude behaviour towards its staff. She, a trained lawyer, has plenty of evidence to show it was in fact the other way round and that the rudeness and attempted character assasination came from them and was aimed at her. She is now cosidering taking her case for compensation to the Trading Standards Office.
In all of this Groupon showed itself to be woefully immature. Its attitude boiled down to "Nothing to do with us, sort it out between yourselves." This is a company which hopes to float on the stockmarket for a multi-billion dollar valuation, much of which is based on its supposed value as a "brand".
After I got involved, Groupon finally offered to reimburse us the cost of the vouchers, and on further complaint, a goodwill gesture of £15 was declared. I made it clear that this was derisory and more of an insult to injury than anything constructive.
Since I've been in Brazil, I've seen plenty of Groupon Brazil ads but the name has lost its lustre. It suffers from the widespread modern marketing malaise of wanting all of the upside and none of the down. When things go well it takes credit for being such a powerful brand, but when they go wrong, well, nothing to do with us !
The amount of stress, upset, disappointment and wasted time in the sorry saga of my mother's gifted Groupon vouchers demands that, at the very least, the company and its disgraceful third-party, should offer a sincere apology. But this, apparently, has not even occurred to them.
Technology may be changing the world, but technology divorced from intelligent and decent human behaviour is not worth very much. When it comes to Groupon and all such newfangled middlemen, keep in mind that most ancient of warnings: Buyer Beware !
Location:R. Afonso Pena,Sao Paulo,Brazil
Update: OFT warns Groupon.
Mmmm.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's more the kind of thing you should use for fairly standardized items such as a cup of coffe or a McDonals hamburger.