Using Groupon for health and wellness businesses
In Lee
Business Horizons, 2016, vol. 59, issue 4, 369-377
Abstract:
Social merchants are small business owners and entrepreneurs who adopt social shopping as a new sales channel. They employ social shopping intermediaries, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, to promote their products or services to price-sensitive customers at large discounts. The success of social merchants depends in part on the reputation they gain at merchant review sites (e.g., Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie's List), via which consumers post online product and merchant reviews. An analysis of social shopping provides insight regarding how social shopping works and what merchants must be aware of if they utilize social shopping intermediaries. This article shares these insights in the context of a set of health and wellness merchants that were studied for five years. Specifically, this article discusses how their Groupon daily deals affect merchant reviews, and how surviving vs. failed social merchants differ in terms of their review scores and number of reviews. Finally, this article provides recommendations about merchant review management to health and wellness merchants.
Keywords: Social shopping; Social commerce; Social merchant; Merchant; Reputation; Review; Groupon; Yelp (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:59:y:2016:i:4:p:369-377
DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2016.02.001
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