Someone forgot to tell Groupon that their site is solely based on impulse purchases such as sky diving, flowers or massages. Furthermore that message was lost on the LaFontaine Buick GMC Cadillac dealership that offered a voucher for $500 off the purchase of a vehicle for only $199. The offer ran for two days and was capped at 150 vouchers by the dealership that had also set the minimum purchase of 10 in order for the price to be honored. Total buyers?  Three.  Insert game show buzzer here.

So what went wrong? A lot of things. To start, as mentioned before, this is not an impulse purchase. People are willing to spend upwards of $100 on Groupon for certain offers that they can use, but there are many limiting factors such as your buying audience being in the market for a vehicle, and also be willing to do business with that specific dealership. People may be willing to look for vehicles at various Buick GMC dealerships, but they will typically research online and don't want to be pressured into shopping at just one dealer.   And some people have the perception that the dealership will simply raise the price to account for the voucher. 

The General Manager of the dealership, Robert Milner, explained that they could shop online and bring the voucher in as a down payment, so they could be assured that price fixing is not occurring.Milner also explained that while the Groupon trial failed, the dealership did receive a lot of feedback and questions from other dealerships considering the same advertising tactic, as well as a good bit of media attention.  The better tactic for dealerships with Groupon is to offer discounted oil changes, merchandise (for example, hats and t-shirts for a Porsche dealership where fans are a tad more rabid), and other car care accessories.

Big ticket items like cars and trucks are a long way away from being embraced by buyers like the ones that visit Groupon everyday.  As for this specific deal, it was a major lesson learned for not only the dealership and Groupon, but also car dealerships everywhere.