It seems that at the core of their demise was the fact that their discounting strategy was very Groupon-esque, ie. Done using a 3rd party service and ultimatel

It seems that at the core of their demise was the fact that their discounting strategy was very Groupon-esque, ie. Done using a 3rd party service and ultimately failing to capture loyalty of their customers. The article states "when they stopped discounting, the sales stopped" but the way that reads to me is that the 3rd party discounting service was actually their only significant source of traffic. It seems unlikely that if they were offering goods at a reasonable price that people needed with a trustworthy level of support, that their sales would completely evaporate in the absence of discounts otherwise.