Friday, November 09, 2012

DealChicken | More signs of major industry stress

Shares of online coupon site leader Groupon are crashing today after another disappointing quarterly earnings report. In recent trading, GRPN is down nearly 30%, to $2.75 a share. The Chicago-based company went public a year ago at $20 a share.

GRPN's grim news followed Amazon's announcement Oct. 25 that the retailer had written off virtually all its $175 million investment in the No. 2 daily deals site, privately-owned LivingSocial.

This contrasts with Gannett's DealChicken. In the third quarter, CEO Gracia Martore told stock analysts, DealChicken was "about three times larger" than in the comparable quarter a year before.

Neither the Q3 press release nor the company's quarterly filing with federal securities regulators mentioned DealChicken at all, however.

GCI launched the site nationally in July 2011.

6 comments:

  1. Groupon, like so many Internet wow sites, turned out to be just more come-ons by third-rate retailers and restaurants you'd never go to in the first place.

    In the end, things cost what they cost. If Amazon didn't exist, brick and mortar stores would be lowering prices in similar price wars.

    Just saying that just because something shifts online doesn't mean basic economics will change. And customers and the market are discovering that simple lesson yet again.

    No surprise.

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  2. Deal Chicken will be "slaughtered" based on Groupon's results. Seriously, for Ms. Martore to claim that it has grown four fold in a year, is like me saying that my three year old has grown 6 times more teeth in 12 months.!

    Deal chicken hurts small businesses. This is another failure from Gannett Digital!

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  3. When will Gannett admit they were too late to the game with this?

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  4. Deal Chicken didn't finish its launch until October 2011. So Gracia's comparison is apples and oranges.

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  5. DealChicken will be folded in the same way MLM was.....

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  6. Deal Chicken isnt going any where folks. Sorry to say.

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