Groupon controls scheduling of deals, which in this case turned out to be bad for her.This also resulted in a lot of fraud as people redeemed coupons multiple times. It was an inefficient way to track the deal. At the time, she didn’t have a computer, so she was reliant on a binder with 900 names in it. Tracking and infrastructure was a really difficult problem.At one point, Jessie was told that she could only ever run one Groupon over the life of the business. He eventually “settled” for 50% “Understanding that your business is newer, I decided to split the revenue with you,” he wrote. Initially, the rep asked for 100% of the revenue. The sales process seemed like buying a car.So nobody knows the parameters unless you tell them. In a conversation with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason after her blog post went viral, she said “This isn’t a newspaper ad where most people know how to do that. Merchants are primarily reliant on the information and recommendations of the sales reps, which can often conflict with the business’ best interest. There is very little information on which merchants can make decisions.Seeing that “success”, she wanted to give it a try. Jessie found about Groupon from a friend who saw that the pizza place across the street was full after running a Groupon.Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 This is only one business owner’s experience, but it is a story worth retelling. I sat with her for an extended conversation. I wanted to drill deeper and get at the why. She calls running a Groupon “the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner thus far.” You can read the story in Jessie’s own words. Jessie had posted about her experience running a Groupon for Posies Cafe on her blog. Her average sale was $5 and her Groupon rep had convinced her to run a Groupon for $13. That one question told me Jessie Burke had been sold an unsuitable product. He blogs at reDesign and Tweets much is your average sale here?” Editor’s note:This guest post was written by Rocky Agrawal, an entrepreneur who has worked on local products since 1995.

Groupon merchant