informal poll/survey- Groupon?

[benhogan]

as you fine people here know, i fix lawn mowers as a side gig. business is understandably strong in the summertime but pretty dead in the winter months (october, november, december, january, february).

I am thinking of doing a groupon coupon. I would offer a 'winterize your mower so it starts in the spring' offer. I want to know if there might be a interest in such a service. So assume that you are not mechanically inclined, would you buy this?

Here are some pertinent points-
-I currently charge $80 per summertime repair (parts and labor)
-I would offer a groupon coupon for say $50
-groupon keeps half, so at $50 I would barely breakeven but it would keep me busy during the boring winter months.

some side points-
-I get paid upfront from groupon as soon as the customer buys the coupon
-some people will not use they coupon they buy, so the whole $25 is now all profit

so the questions are...would buy this coupon? given that the regular price is $80, at what price would you be compelled to buy? in other words, what price should i offer so you will get off your duff and do this?

[MTI]

Preventative maintenance is always a hard sell, especially when the potential benefit of the service won't be realized for several months.

[benhogan]

Yeah, I can't get the math to work either. I am going to pass. I think I would rather sit idle for a few months than deal with a Groupon patron. I suspect that a typical groupon groupie is...

-cheap
-nitpicky
-is a something-for-nothing-type

this happens to be the exact person that I avoid in the first place.

I think Groupon would work if there was no incremental cost for the vendor. Say if I operated a corn maze, the incremental cost (material and time) of one more customer is nil. Every mower customer requires a spark plug, air filter and oil.

Therefore, Groupon is not a dog that will hunt for me.

[elchivito]

It doesn't sound like it'd work in your situation. We are using Groupon and LivingSocial at the winery, offering a half price tasting package. We make very little money on tastings to begin with, so it increases traffic at minimal cost, certainly less than what we pay for print advertising. I haven't done the actual numbers yet, but it appears to be increasing bottle sales fairly well.