Groupon

Have you ever seen ads for Groupon, but not known exactly what it was? Groupon is a website that features an exclusive sale item for major cities across the country every day. Usually the discount is at least 50% off the normal price, but many times it is much higher!

I've been getting the Groupon emails for some time now, but I had never bought one until this week. I look at both the Philadelphia and Baltimore deals, since Philadelphia is the closest city, but our families are in the Baltimore area. This weekend's Baltimore Groupon was for $7 tickets to the Maryland Zoo (this was more than 50% off). We had already talked about going to the zoo, so this was perfect, and was even a better price than the BOGO coupons in our Entertainment Book.

From the Groupon FAQ page:

We started Groupon to make it easier for people to enjoy the great things in their community. We do it by offering daily deals at unbeatable prices through the power of group buying. We also use Groupon's consumer collective to lift each community we touch, by featuring local charities and organizing support for community causes.

I really like the emphasis that Groupon has put on connecting people with local events in their communities. Its way too easy to forget all of the awesome activities that are available in the places where we live!

Some important things to remember if you sign up for Groupon:

1) You will be seeing an email everyday with a "great deal" advertised. If you are an impulse shopper, Groupon is probably not the best way for you to save on local activities!

2) It is best to have a few ideas about the type of deals you are most interested in seeing. This will make it easy to delete the ones that might sound interesting, but could be more likely to lead to an impulse purchase. For example, I have been looking for an activity for us to do with our daughter (so the zoo was perfect).

3) Setting a price range is crucial! Many times a deal will be for a high percentage off, but it will still be more expensive (several hundred dollars). If you have the money saved, then it could still be a great deal for you! You until about 9pm to decide if you want to buy the Groupons (and the Saturday one is good all weekend), so that helps give some time to think about it.

4) Make sure you read the fine print! Groupons expire (sometimes within the month you buy them), so be sure you can use them first! Also, there are sometimes limits of how many you can buy, redeem at once, etc. Always important to know the details.

Do you have any experiences with Groupon that you would like to add? Sign up for Groupon here (this is my referral link; if you would prefer to sign up on Groupon's main page, that's fine too!)