Groupon Group buying business is on the decline and the prime time for group buying is over

Beijing Time August 10 News, according to foreign media reports, a few years ago, everyone was excited about Groupon. Each day, people receive a groupon email about discounted sushi or low price yoga for the day. And what is the situation now?

If you feel like you've been ignoring a group purchase email in your inbox in the past few months, or simply canceling your subscription, you're not alone. Groupon's so-called "third party" revenue, the benchmark for its group buying business, has fallen from its peak. As the figure shows, Groupon's Third-party revenue peaked in the first quarter of 2012, followed by a general downward trend.

But Groupon is poised to deal with the problem. As early as 2011, Groupon launched a direct selling business Groupon hereby, and achieved rapid development. Groupon sold 190 million U.S. dollars in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 190% per cent year-on-year. This not only makes up for the decline of group buying business, but also increases the total revenue by 7% to $609 million.

In the second quarter of 2013, Groupon's revenue amounted to $609 million, up 7% from $568.3 million a year earlier, and a net loss of $7.6 million trillion, a net profit of 28.37 million dollars over the same period last year. The results were slightly higher than Wall Street analysts had expected, and Groupon's share price rose sharply after the day.

Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon's chief executive, said Groupon was changing, and it was no longer a troubled Eric Levkovsky. Now Groupon sees itself as a mobile "market" that people can use to search and complete deals. In June this year, Groupon's nearly 50% deals in North America came from mobile devices, up from 30% in the same period last year. More than 50 million users worldwide have downloaded Groupon mobile apps.

The transition has worked, and Groupon should be thankful that the golden era of group buying seems to be over. LivingSocial has also taken a similar step, and the company is transforming from a flash-buy deal. Despite the recent layoffs, revenue is still growing.