As someone running a business...
Sure, they're great if you're a consumer, but businesses get totally and utterly screwed.
1. The margin plus discount is wayyyyy too high.
2. They're a hot date booker resulting in alot of money being lost during those times. No, I don't mean 25%, I mean much much much more.
3. They have no extranet. The only thing I can get on a reservations from Groupon after the date it has been originally sent to us is the name of the guest, nothing more. No bed type, no room rates, no dates of stay, nothing. The only other way to get it is to email the contact and hope they get back to you at some point.
4. We can't shut down dates once Groupon has been given a certain number of rooms. Let's say they were originally told that they could book 8 rooms. With a regular hotel website (like expedia), once we get close to sold out, we can remove the inventory so we aren't oversold. With groupon, you give them inventory and they get that inventory, so you have to walk reservations that are paying way more money to another hotel if groupon oversells you which means you are effectively losing money.
This has resulted in oversell, and angry guests. But the owner thinks this is a great idea because he sold lots of rooms. Yeah, he sold lots of rooms. At a third of the original price that we are getting paid for other reservations during that time.
So frustrated.
Sure, they're great if you're a consumer, but businesses get totally and utterly screwed.
1. The margin plus discount is wayyyyy too high.
2. They're a hot date booker resulting in alot of money being lost during those times. No, I don't mean 25%, I mean much much much more.
3. They have no extranet. The only thing I can get on a reservations from Groupon after the date it has been originally sent to us is the name of the guest, nothing more. No bed type, no room rates, no dates of stay, nothing. The only other way to get it is to email the contact and hope they get back to you at some point.
4. We can't shut down dates once Groupon has been given a certain number of rooms. Let's say they were originally told that they could book 8 rooms. With a regular hotel website (like expedia), once we get close to sold out, we can remove the inventory so we aren't oversold. With groupon, you give them inventory and they get that inventory, so you have to walk reservations that are paying way more money to another hotel if groupon oversells you which means you are effectively losing money.
This has resulted in oversell, and angry guests. But the owner thinks this is a great idea because he sold lots of rooms. Yeah, he sold lots of rooms. At a third of the original price that we are getting paid for other reservations during that time.
So frustrated.
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