By the way garply, I'm curious where in China are you based? If you're in Shanghai, let's meet up... I can't comment on the group think or not on Groupon here.

By the way garply, I'm curious where in China are you based? If you're in Shanghai, let's meet up... I can't comment on the group think or not on Groupon here. One thing though, as a user of groupon type deals (well meituan, lashou and enjoymeitian), I find that most deals I bought didn't bring anything for the shop owner... Either the discount was too steep and in that case I'm unlikely to ever want to pay the full price to come again or it's a shop I already know and enjoy (happens to me a lot with restaurants deals). So, I think that Groupon and clones are a useful tool to have, but one needs to think very carefully on how to formulate the deals. The discount shouldn't be too big or you'll attract people who are too cheap (or don't have enough money) to pay for your service at normal price. You also need to find a way to make them come back. For restaurants and cafes, this can be done with adding them to a mailinglist and organizing regular events...