Does Groupon Work for Small Businesses?

Groupon, LivingSocial, Woot, these are all “deal of the day” sites where you can register and receive a different daily deal from your businesses in your city.  It’s a great idea for consumers and is seemingly a fantastic way for businesses small and large to promote their products and/or services to thousands, even million subscribers.  But there are a few downsides to this massive promotion campaign, the first being the fact that businesses are required to severely discount their products/services, the second being that more often than not thousands of people purchase the deal and small businesses are not properly equipped to handle the massive influx of customers.

There have been many articles written about the pros/cons of these “deal of the day” sites, so I wanted to share not my opinion on how I feel these sites could make or break a business, but what I experienced first hand at Kruger Farm’s Market on Sauvie Island yesterday.

Like 2,056 other Portlanders, I purchased an amazing deal from LivingSocial two weeks ago.  For just $16.00 purchasers like myself received 2 admission tickets to the corn maze, two pumpkins, two ears of roasted corn, and two Carmel apples.  Good deal right?  So I encouraged some friends to purchase the deal, and yesterday we all packed in our car and headed to Sauvie Island to experience the farm.  Initially I was slightly disappointed because the deal said nothing about the fact that Kruger’s doesn’t have their outdoor food tents open during the weekday and because we were there on a Tuesday we couldn’t enjoy their barbecue or other fair type foods.  They did, however, have fresh fruit, vegetables, honey, jam, sauce, kettle corn, and more for sale, so I quickly got over my “lack of BBQ foods” disappointment.

When we walked in we were greeted by the Kruger staff, and after reading my confirmation code for the LivingSocial deal (they didn’t require me to print and bring the receipt which was awesome!) we were given an orange ticket that listed each item that we were to receive during our visit to the farm.  We were told that we could redeem any of the four items whenever we wanted, and they would simply mark those items off.  Pretty slick.  While we were getting our tickets Mr. Kruger himself (who is a passionate and enthusiastic man) told us he had hired some additional staff off of Craigslist to help manage the crowds he was expecting to get as it gets closer to Halloween.  His biggest concern were the Carmel apples (it takes a little time to make each Carmel apple), so he hired someone specifically to pre-make the delicious treats and put them in paper wrappers sprayed with Pam (paper wrappers along stuck to the warm Carmel).  After enjoying our apples (and giving ourselves 20 cavities), we headed out to the corn maze followed by the pumpkin patch.

I don’t want to bore you with the details of the rest of our excursion (i.e. naming the pumpkins that had rotted and turned to mush in the field, identifying pumpkins that resembles past presidents, super models, Lindsay Lohan, etc.).  I do want to drive home the point that because of preparation and the Kruger Farm staff’s understanding of how to best prepare for an influx of customers who will all be redeeming the same four items at the same time, they were able to create a system that will make customers happy and will hopefully return to their farm someday or tell their friends to go to their farm.  They weren’t roasting corn (they don’t roast on weekdays, another item not mentioned in the deal), but they must have realized this mistake early because they told us right away that in lieu of roasted corn we could have 8 ears of fresh corn.  Awesome right?  We pushed the envelope and asked if we could trade our 8 ears for a bag of kettle corn, and they were more than happy to fulfil our request.  Great customer service, great kettle corn, great time at Kruger Farm.

Moral of the story is: if you offer a deal through one of the many deal of the day sites, prepare yourself appropriately.  Prepare yourself for the increase in phone calls, for an influx of customers, and for customers who have never heard of your product or business before but and are trying you out for the first time.  Don’t forget to prepare your staff.  If your staff doesn’t know what is going on, it will translate to angry customers…and no one wants an angry customer.

Thank you Kruger Farmer’s Market for the great experience at the pumpkin patch!  We ended up spending more money and getting a cool green pumpkin (in addition to our Bill Clinton and Tyra Banks orange pumpkin), carrots, pears, peaches, apples, and a bag of Beer Chips.  See you next year!