Groupon wants to be THE site for deals and coupons. If they acquire enough end users, the cost of acquiring new partners will go down. The benefits will be co

Groupon wants to be THE site for deals and coupons. If they acquire enough end users, the cost of acquiring new partners will go down. The benefits will be common knowledge, businesses will approach them, and lots of salespeople will get laid off or at least growth there will slow dramatically. But end users won't use groupon without a good selection of partners. There are a variety of strategies for building up a solid base of partners, and it appears groupon's tactic is a large sales staff. It's a gamble and I have no idea whether they will pull it off. If they don't eventually lower the marginal cost of acquiring partners they will certainly fail, but there is possibility for success and aggressive growth is an understandable (if risky) approach.