Groupon site is active in major cities of the United States, Canada, Brazil, France, Belgium, Germany and UK. It was launched in November 2008 in Chicago. Subsequently, it was readily available in Boston, New York and Toronto. The site at that time had 35 million registered users. "Notably, this model is economically viable for a trader or a partner when the margin of its performance or its product is over 75%, which is rarely the case."

History

Andrew Mason, native of Pittsburgh and creator of the site is the current CEO of the Groupon company. Its first work was in a restaurant in the same building as their office where they offered a pizza with a 50% discount.

Groupon is now growing rapidly with expected sales of $500 million for the year 2010. According to a report published in the magazine Forbes and a report in the Wall Street Journal, Groupon should "generate $1 billion faster than any other company".

Business model

Groupon displays a range of product per day in each market it serves. The offer provides a product with a discount of 50-90%.The offer is available on the Groupon website and is emailed to members who have registered on the site of Groupon. The provision states: the detailed description of the product offered, its regular price, the discount offered by the supplier, the price after the discount and the minimum number of products to be purchased for as sales are concluded.

Litigation

Disputes are managed on eBay itself, first between seller and buyer, and then, if no solution is found, eBay operates. If the delay is too long, or if eBay fails to make them reach an agreement, eBay may, depending on the value of the object, refund the party they judge and refund after taking a commission. In other cases, the justice of the country of the buyer to decides.

In the event that the transaction is concluded by the means of payment PayPal, and the dispute is related to payment or a refund, then it is PayPal that manages the dispute if both parties were unable to find an agreement. Similarly, if no agreement is reached, it is then up to Justice to decide.

End of transaction

It is advisable to put a positive note if the transaction was successful. Of course, the rating is accompanied by a comment line and it is possible to respond to a review of assessment. This is limited, in general, to a simple “thank you“ when things go well.

These ratings and comments are the keystone of the system: it will help the seller earn a certain level of trust from future buyers and vice versa. The number of transactions and the percentage of positive ratings is indeed indicated in each profile. It is generally inadvisable to buy or sell to users with a percentage of positive notes too low or negative.

All business transactions carried out are based on the WWW. The shop operator loads his graphics, logos, etc. via the Internet to ensure exposure of his products. Spreadshirt takes over the management from warehousing to manufacturing, shipping and payment processing and customer service as well all the features necessary to drive the individual merchandising products online.

History

Spreadshirt was founded in 2001 by Lukasz Gadowski and Matthias Spit. Spit at that time had already some experience in business formation. The new Managing Directors was the summer of 2004 was Michael Petersen. In 2006, the corporate that was in the form of a limited liability company changed into an AG.

Spreadshirt is headquartered in Leipzig Plagwitz. In addition, there are other European offices in Berlin, London, Paris, Utrecht and in the Polish Legnica. In 2006 it was also the third production site in Leipzig and the American site in Greensburg (Pennsylvania). The U.S. subsidiary is based in Boston.

On the 1st August 2007, Gadowski resigned from his post as CEO at Spreadshirt and instead acts as Chairman of the Supervisory Board since 2008. Gadowskis' successor was the U.S. citizen Jana Eggers, who until November 2010 served as CEO of Spreadshirt. The current Board members are co-founders Matthias Spiess, Tobias Schaugg CFO and Vice President and Marketing Director Philip Rook (November 2010).