Groupon Update for Cleaning Companies (More Details)
By Hitman | January 26, 2011
Quick update.
Two cleaning company owners have called me after seeing my post from January 21, 2011.
Both have told me they were likely to try Groupon again and that they had a mostly positive experience.
One cleaner was kind enough to give me details, but I’ll keep his company name and city anonymous.
So here’s what he said.
He sold 160 Groupons for 3 rooms of carpet cleaning sold for $55. 110 of the Groupons were used.
Slightly less than half of the Groupons that were used upgraded to have more services performed at the time of cleaning. The total sales were a little over $10,000. This made the job average about $91.
The company advertising the Groupon normally charges per room prices that are among the highest prices in the city.
From what the cleaning company owner stated, most of the homes he went in were higher end homes. He stated, “These were the type of homes we normally target with our high end cleaning company.”
And so, all in all, he said he was satisfied with the experience and he will be mailing followup postcards to all the Groupon buyers in the early Spring.
Click the comments links below to tell what you think.
Topics: Carpet Cleaning Advertising | 11 Comments »
Facebook comments:
11 Responses to “Groupon Update for Cleaning Companies (More Details)”
Questions and Comments
« Groupon For Carpet Cleaning Businesses? | Home | Groupon Update »
January 26th, 2011 at 10:08 am
I am on the fence also. I first heard about this at Connections. The 75% discount is hard to swallow. At Connections they talked about the Gross Value but if it cost you considerably more to do the cleaning I don’t see how this works – if I take in 50,000 and it costs me 100,000 was it worth it? My minimum is $95.00 and you would get 195 square foot of cleaning for that price. My ideal customer is like Howard Partridge says the client with the Mercedes attitude, not necessarily the Mercedes, the attitude. The only way you get repeats with this is if they are willing to pay full price the next time. If these are affluent people that are willing to pay it will work but if these are affluent people that are bargain shoppers, it will be a costly lesson. Is the average consumer who is willing to pay me $500.00, maybe $1000.00 the next time around at groupon? I don’t know, but thats who I need, my competition is welcome to the bargain shoppers who have no loyalty and will drop me for $10.00 less.Bargain shoppers are nice people I just prefer to spend my marketing dollars and time on people of affluence that are willing to pay for quality. Price is not unimportant to them, just not the most important thing to them.
January 26th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Let’s say that this individuals time committment was his and his alone and that he can personally produce
six hundred of these high end jobs per season and that half of these people repeat one year because they expect a lower price. Let’s look at this. $60,000. + year 3 ($30,000.) Then year 4 with a 90% fail rate = no marketing budget, no vacation, no repairs, no relationship with clients that have a true residual value. Now I’m not suggesting that this device can’t be massaged to work but I am suggesting that if you wish to make your business
into a commodity and perhaps this, industry then you had better have a commodity. PS This assumes two years to coupon yourself to $60,000.
January 26th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
I have tried a similar campaign with a local radio station, the customer wuold buy gift cards half price from the stations website. Nothing but a bunch of cheap, bloodsucking, ignorant people responded. Live and Learn.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Hey John, we’re moving forward with Groupon but were able to negotiate a better deal than the standard 50% which I think is important to bring attention to. Also, based on our strategy with Groupon, I think it will wind up being the best thing we’ve done for marketing ever! Our featured ad runs on Feb 13th so I will have more feedback on the actual results.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:55 pm
I have used goupon and I have had amazing results. I sold over 70 coupons in one day that made created $1500. Think about it worst case you clean at cost but you should up sell sell other services and if you are good get some repeat. Many people will forget about their coupon and you still make money off that. A 75 percent discount will not happen. I booked about 10 jobs from people who saw the add but did not want to give their credit card number over the internet. I have done some jobs at cost but many jobs turned in to thiusand dollar jobs. I would not do it in the busy season but if you are slow in the winter what do you have to lose?
February 19th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
still not sure about it for carpet cleaning . Curious to know how Ben’s ad did for him
March 25th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
I am also waiting to read Ben’s results.
I think that in a labor intensive field such as carpet cleaning it is hard to swallow giving up 75%. You still have to figure in the gas, unemployment insurance, workers comp, withholding, social security taxes, labor, chemicals, etc, etc. My feeling is that by the time you get past these you alreadly lost the 25% that you thought made.
Sure you can upsell to a point, and you may get some repeat customers, but that will dwindle fast. Where cunsumers are trying to squeeze every penny from every dollar it will be a hard road to upsell enough to make up for the 75% loss.
What I saw happen this year was that some companies did Groupon making 25% and I did a home show and made 100% + upsells. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that for less work I’m making way more money than those groupon merchants. The $600 for the home show was a lot less work than working for 25% of my revenue.
I’m watching those Groupn merchants
struggle getting all of their work done for 25%.
What I can not see is why Groupon thinks that they are worth so much.
I’ll stay on the fence a while longer until I can be convinced
April 27th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I am on the verge of doing a groupon type promotion with another national company (my area is the test area for the country).
Being I am new at this, can anyone recommend a deal where I won’t take a bath if there is no upselling. My area is very slow as of this writing. The company agreed to do a 70/30 commission split which is less then Groupon.
Your suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
November 10th, 2011 at 9:20 am
We where on groupon 2 months ago. We sold 575 Coupons. Which is over 15,000 dollar. Our deal was 3 rooms for $59.00 everything included. We are very happy they deposit over 5000.00 into our bank. With the things people added to the jobs like steps, rugs and rooms we deposit a other 6000.00. We have also got many customer that have already told friends and family and had there carpet cleaned. The key to this is to do a good job when your out there. Don’t pressure people into thing that don’t want done. They remember you in a good way if there not pressure into Add-ons. So on the job things met not be added-on, but the tell a friend and you get full price. That how it works.
November 18th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
We just started our groupon ad 3 days ago, since then we have sold 380 units. 3 rooms of carpet cleaning 49.00 up to 600 sq ft. We keep half of it. I have cleaned 6 jobs so far with add on sales of $350.00. I have 5 more jobs tomorrow and to be honest I am a little concerned about making money with add ons. I am afraid to be too pushy but Its hard working so cheap. I will update after tomorrow but so far these people don’t really want to spend much more than the groupon. I can’t survive on 45.00 step add ons.
November 28th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Kevin, from what it sounds like, your prices were kind of low from the start. 600 square feet for $100 is still kind of low priced. Then you took that amount and gave them a better deal….oops.
Instead, your regular price should be $150 or so for 600 square feet. Then you can give them a deal that’s almost half that and maybe do 300 square feet for $49. Then you’re only coming out to do a small amount of cleaning with Groupon.
Your problem is you set the Groupon up to come out and do too much cleaning.
The ONLY WAY you’ll make money at this point is with add ons. It’s your only hope. You MUST get good at it quick!