Groupon - SnapShotSandy

[RyanSandsPhotography]

Groupon is a big no no for any business owner...especially if you have to offer some kind of a physical product that costs you money with part of your deal. But if this photographer has to do nothing but show up and teach then more power to him. Now I'm not saying that everyone and their mother should run out and try Groupon and teach photography...because like I said before Groupon is a pile of garbage for a business owner. But at least this person is trying something. Tooting your own horn is essential in photography to get yourself business and become known. Marketing is 90% of what we do. The sooner you wrap your head around that the better

[Biomech]

uuuuhhhh, what?

"Okay, so this photo was shot with a $3,000 DSLR camera & lens combo, and I didn't like it much
so I enhanced it and it made me an artist, right :-)"

Photo Art

Still not as cheap as this Groupon:
94% Off at Blink of an Eye Photography

In fact, looking at that again, they have 75 clients on that deal so far. Pushing it hard at 3 shoots/edits a day, that's over a months worth of solid work (mon-fri) for £375!

oooohhhh £375. Minus 75 frames (say crap ones at £2 a piece) that's -£150. Then take off over a months worth of employee wages, maybe £1,200, the print costs, the electricity, insurance, studio bills... that's got to hurt pretty bad.

[cyber3d]

You know, Biomech, I wonder if making money is not the point of this and some other Groupon endeavors. May be these guys are experimenting with Groupon as strictly a marketing tool (just to get their company mentioned). Or may be that last example was someone hoping to break even while building their folio. Not the best way of doing things but,....

Anyone here use Groupon successfully?

[Biomech]

I might agree with you with some examples, but a lot of these are just complete no brainers. You don't need to research whether selling a product at a loss is going to make you money :P There are much better ways to do marketing and market research than throwing thousands of pounds down the drain

Services can be good for groupon. Imagine selling 55" TV's on there for £50 when they cost £2,000. And at the end saying "yep, our statistics show, that we've lost a shit tonne of money" lol :P

Some products can be sold at a loss to generate more revenue. Take games consoles for example, they sell at a loss - they make their money on game sales. The big difference here is that in order to use a game console, you HAVE to buy the game. No one needs to buy an extra 5 prints to make a photo session work.

[matt-tastic]

Groupon is spectacular for subscription based service businesses, especially if you're looking for exposure.