[Updated at 6:20 p.m. ET.] Stock in the No. 1 daily deals site plunged 15% today, closing at $20.07 -- nearly at the company's $20 initial public offering price -- on investor concerns about growing competition.
Today's trade was the second consecutive day of tumbling: GRPN closed yesterday at $23.58, down 10% from $26.19 on Friday -- the highest closing price since the Chicago company's Nov. 4 IPO.
Hundreds of daily deal startups have flooded the market over the past year, including Gannett's DealChicken, which launched nationally in July and is now in about 50 U.S. markets.
Hundreds of daily deal startups have flooded the market over the past year, including Gannett's DealChicken, which launched nationally in July and is now in about 50 U.S. markets.
I'm guessing this will never happen to the Chicken.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45398235/ns/world_news-europe/
Let them eat cupcakes!
Market cap of GRPN is 5X that of Gannett. Even if newspapers aren't doing so well, that just doesn't make any sense.
ReplyDeleteI am up in arms about the DealChicken initiative. Seems like the plan is to hire people with little to no sales experience to go out and simply telemarket to set appointments or knock on doors and confuse accounts. Run them ragged until they get burned out and hire the next kid out of college a month later. Simply burn and churn advertisers. Piss off advertisers when their deal gets turned down because of one trend in a completely different market or "living social does this so it should work for us". Deal Chicken simply CAN NOT compete with the other sites and they blame the sales people for when their deals do not sell. Total mis management by hiring people with absolutely no experience in the daily deal space. Close up shop and create something new instead of just straight up COPYING living socials approach.
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