Page 245 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Closing Case: Groupon: Will the Company Prosper? 229

6. Why do you think that Wanelo is popular? 3. Each group adopts one or two of the following companies
7. Examine Facebook Offers. What is the potential of the that actively advertise and engage on Facebook and Twitter:
viral service? What is the advantage of mobile news- Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Ford, Pepsi, Levi’s, Disney, Victoria’s
feeds? Explain the competition with Living Social. Secret, iTunes, Toyota, Sony, or P&G. Find and summarize
what advertising methods they use and how they do their
campaigns. Write a report.
INTERNET EXERCISES 4. The class will investigate group buying in China and India.
What is the prospect for group buying in Asia? (Start
1. Enter smartmobs.com. Go to the blogroll. Find three with Madden’s article “China Pioneers Group Buying
blogs related to social commerce, and summarize their Discounts Without Groupon” at adage.com/article/global-
major features. news/advertising-china-group-buying-discounts-
2. Enter thisnext.com. What are the features of the site? groupon/147641. Also check WoWo Ltd. in China.
What do you like? Dislike? Why? 5. The class reads Gil (2015) and divides the 50 predictions
3. Enter salesforce.com and identify all SCRM activities among groups. Research progress and submit reports.
supported by the company, especially those related to
their Chatter product. View the slide show at: slideshare.
net/Salesforce/salesforce-customer- servicebest- CLOSING CASE: GROUPON: WILL
practices-25640141. Write a report. THE COMPANY PROSPER?
4. Enter salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14. Find topics
that deal with SCRM. Write a summary. The name Groupon is a combination of group and coupon.
5. Enter bazaarvoice.com. Summarize its major services. Groupon was founded in November 2008 and has been con-
Examine SocialConnect. sidered the fastest-growing company ever by 2012 (in terms
6. Enter tkg.com/social-media-marketing. Prepare a list of sales). Initially, Groupon offered both group buying and
of information you can get there about social shopping. deal of the day (one highly discounted deal per day) in
7. Enter select2gether.com. What services can you get selected metro areas in the United States. As of 2014, Groupon
from this site? serves 500 markets worldwide, in 48 countries.
8. Enter powerreviews.com. Compare their activities to
those of similar sites.
9. Enter deal-of-the-day-review.toptenreviews.com, and The Opportunity
summarize the lessons learned.
10. Enter socialshoppingnetwork.org. Find material related Groupon is a start-up that offers special highly discounted
to this chapter. Write a report. deals, mostly via e-mail. The idea is that when subscribers
hear about a big discount, they would forward the news to
friends who may also place an order (the “social” element).
TEAM ASSIGNMENTS AND PROJECTS Initially, the more buyers who joined in the sale, creating a
group buy, the larger the discount. However, this model has
1. Assignment for the Opening Case been changed as will be described next.
(a) What social media tools and platforms does Sony
use?
(b) How does each tool facilitate customer service? The Solution
(c) What are the major benefits of social CRM to Sony?
(d) Relate Sony’s use of Pinterest to social CRM. (Start To exploit the opportunity, Groupon developed a unique
by entering community.sony.com.) business model.
(e) Find CRM-related activities. Summarize.
(f) Go to Sony’s community and ask a question. Get The Initial Business Model and the Strategy
results. Summarize four experiences.
2. Facebook is increasingly offering marketing tools (e.g., According to Groupon (groupon.com), the company offers
Open Graph, Social Plug-ins). Identify all the tools offered. special sales, called “Groupons,” in each city that the com-
Each group concentrates on the business implications in pany serves. The advertised deal lasts for a limited time
one of the following areas: advertising and search engine ( usually between 24 and 72 h) and becomes available to all
optimization (SEO), shopping, market research, customer registered members. According to Groupon’s customer service
service, CRM, and others. Make a class presentation. department, in the past, Groupon’s policy was to guarantee