Groupon Releases Merchant Redemption Application

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Groupon has debuted a mobile redemption-tracking app to enhance and streamline the merchant experience. Available as a free download in the Android Marketplace and soon in the Apple App Store, the Merchant App allows staff to scan and verify Groupons using their device’s camera. In coming months, Groupon will ship Android phones and iPod Touches with the app preloaded to thousands of businesses as part of their featured promotion on the popular site.

“The Merchant App makes it dead simple for merchants to track their Groupons, which is especially helpful for businesses that have sold thousands of Groupons or span multiple locations,” said Andrew Mason, founder and chief executive officer of Groupon. “We’ve worked closely with our merchants, and their feedback has shaped a robust arsenal of services that we’re excited to roll out.”

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Over 30 "Group Buy Platform" Companies Emerge to Power Daily Deal Startups

Hundreds of Daily Deal and Flash Buying startups are emerging to cash in on the group buy explosion. To serve the startup boom in the group buy space, over 30 companies are specializing in providing the technologies that power group buying sites. 

The companies' offerings include downloadable scripts to install on your own server, full service white label hosted solutions that handle everything from email management and social sharing to business forms and credit card processing, and full service dealware providers that network the independent daily deal sites they power nationally.

Check out our Coupon Business Directory for a list of 31 Daily Deal Technology Companies: http://www.couponmarketer.com/coupon-business-directory/category/group-buy-technology

New "Groupon Stores" Self Service Daily Deal Platform Allows Merchants to Create their Own Group Buy Deals

Groupon quietly launched its new self service daily deal platform, Groupon Stores, last week.  The story first hit the blogosphere on the midVentures blog. With a screenshot and the following quote from Groupon Chicago's sidebar about the new service:

“Groupon Stores is a place where your favorite, local businesses can sign up, create a store page, and post deals at anytime for you to see. Welcome to the future of Groupon.”

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eWinWin’s Private Label Social Buying Platform Gives Publishers Power to Launch Hyper-local Group Deals

eWinWin announced today the release of its Private Label 3.0 Social Buying Platform which enables publishers to create, launch, and track group deals and start their very own buying communities. Although based on its successful GoDIRECT™ program, the private label platform has a series of industry-leading firsts for group buying.

The highlights include:

• Group Deal Wizard – easy to complete self-service templates enable anyone to create a professionally designed group deal in just minutes (no HTML experience required)

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Coupons.com Introduces Publishing Industry First: Ability for Online Publishers of Any Size to Add Digital Coupon Galleries

Coupons.com Incorporated, the recognized leader in digital coupons, today introduced an industry first for Web publishers with a new version of Brandcaster, the company’s free, self-service platform for publishers wanting to monetize their sites or blogs with digital coupons. Brandcaster 2.0 enables publishers to easily create digital coupon galleries that generate revenue on their sites—with little time and effort, no programming knowledge and without any cost whatsoever. As a result, publishers of any size can now offer full digital coupon galleries on their sites, providing valuable money-saving content to visitors, while generating revenue when visitors use the site. Brandcaster is available at www.brandcaster.com.

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QR Codes for All: Mass Ability to Read and Create QR Codes Brings New Possiblilties for Coupon Marketers

Imagine pulling out your smartphone and using it as a scanner to download videos, coupons, information about a store or business, or even someone's business card info. Well, welcome to a truly digital world, because we're already there. All you need is a QR reader application.

DENSO WAVE Incorporated, the inventor of the two-dimensional barcode, called a Quick Response (QR) Code, introduced a QR Code reader application for the iPhone. The English version of the application "QRdeCODE" can be downloaded from the Apple Inc., App Store beginning June 7, for $1.99.

Not only will the QRdeCODE app allow you to scan these two-dimensional barcodes and get information, you can also create your own personal QR code so you can give information. The app will take information, like a name, number and email address and create a QR code so you can exchange your information. The user can also create a QR Code containing a text message and/or url.  

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New York Times : Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell

Coupons from the Internet are the fastest-growing part of the coupon world--their redemption increased 263 percent to about 50 million coupons in 2009, according to the coupon-processing company Inmar. Using coupons to link Internet behavior with in-store shopping lets retailers figure out which ad slogans or online product promotions work best, how long someone waits between searching and shopping, even what offers a shopper will respond to or ignore.

The coupons can, in some cases, be tracked not just to an anonymous shopper but to an identifiable person: a retailer could know that Amy Smith printed a 15 percent-off coupon after searching for appliance discounts at Ebates.com on Friday at 1:30 p.m. and redeemed it later that afternoon at the store.

Original Post:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/business/media/17coupon.html

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Online Savings Offers and High Value Local "Deals of the Day" Added to Coupons.com Offerings

Coupons.com today introduced two new products for consumers and for the Coupons.com network of publishers. New this week on Coupons.com are the Online Savings center, which gives shoppers discounts on online purchases, and the Daily Deal, which offers fantastic deals on products and services from local businesses. Coupons.com also announced it will be making the Online Savings and the Daily Deal Offers available to the company's network of thousands of publishers.

"Coupon codes and other offers that save consumers money on their online purchases as well as deeply discounted deals offered exclusively online by local businesses have become very popular with today's connected shopper," said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com Incorporated. "Many of our 16 million monthly users told us they'd love to get these great savings offers when they come to Coupons.com for digital coupons. We listened, and are extremely happy to now offer them right on Coupons.com."

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