Finance Analyst - Strategic Finance

Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) stock crosses above 200 day moving average - here's why. August 19, 2026 Key points. * Groupon shares rose above their 200-day moving average of $17.38, reaching $20.73 and closing around $20.22 on volume of approximately 1.3 million shares. * Analyst sentiment remains cautious: Groupon has a consensus "Reduce" rating and a $26 target price, with ratings ranging from Buy to Sell. Goldman Sachs maintained a Sell rating, while Northland Securities set a $30 target. * Groupon's latest quarter showed an adjusted loss of $0.04 per share, better than the $0.06 loss expected, but revenue of $124.67 million fell short of the $127.09 million consensus estimate; institutional investors own about 90.05% of the stock. * MarketBeat previews the top five stocks to own by September 1st. Shares of Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRPN - Get Free Report) passed above its 200-day moving average during trading on Tuesday. The stock has a 200-day moving average of $17.38 and traded as high as $20.73. Groupon shares last traded at $20.22, with a volume of 1,296,059 shares trading hands. Analysts set new price targets. Several research firms have recently weighed in on GRPN. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a "sell" rating and set a $22.00 price objective on shares of Groupon in a research note on Monday, August 10th. Citigroup reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of Groupon in a research note on Tuesday, June 9th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of Groupon in a report on Tuesday, June 9th. Northland Securities set a $30.00 price target on Groupon in a research report on Monday. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded Groupon from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Saturday, August 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Reduce" and a consensus target price of $26.00. Groupon price performance. The stock's 50-day simple moving average is $23.48 and its 200 day simple moving average is $17.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $822.25 million, a P/E ratio of -6.50 and a beta of 0.23. Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The coupon company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.06) by $0.02. The company had revenue of $124.67 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $127.09 million. As a group, analysts expect that Groupon, Inc. will post -0.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Institutional inflows and outflows. Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its stake in shares of Groupon by 92.7% in the second quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,299 shares of the coupon company's stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 625 shares during the period. Quarry LP increased its stake in Groupon by 48.1% during the 3rd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,938 shares of the coupon company's stock worth $45,000 after acquiring an additional 629 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada raised its holdings in Groupon by 10.6% in the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 7,618 shares of the coupon company's stock valued at $90,000 after acquiring an additional 731 shares in the last quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd acquired a new position in Groupon in the 3rd quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its position in shares of Groupon by 6.9% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 21,340 shares of the coupon company's stock valued at $376,000 after acquiring an additional 1,377 shares during the period. 90.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Groupon company profile. Groupon, Inc operates an online marketplace that connects subscribers with local merchants offering discounted goods, services and experiences. Through its website and mobile applications, Groupon provides time-limited deals across categories such as restaurants, travel, beauty and wellness, home services, and consumer products. Merchants partner with Groupon to attract new customers and drive foot traffic, leveraging the platform's targeted marketing tools and large subscriber base to promote special offers and vouchers. Discover more Stock Market News Options Profit Calculator Founded in Chicago in 2008 by Andrew Mason, Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, Groupon pioneered the daily-deals model, quickly growing its user community and merchant network. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. Continue following MarketBeat Before you consider Groupon, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Groupon wasn't on the list. While Groupon currently has a Reduce rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. MarketBeat just released its list of the 7 hottest IPOs expected to hit Wall Street in 2026. See which companies are preparing to go public and why investors are watching closely.

Groupon reported second quarter 2026 results showing global revenue and billings down 1% year-over-year. The company posted a loss from continuing operations of $1.5 million, whilst Adjusted EBITDA reached $14.8 million at the high end of guidance. North America Local Revenue fell 2%, reflecting weakness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do. International Local Revenue increased 8%, driven by improved organic performance. Active customers grew 2% to 16.1 million. Unit sales dropped 7% to 8.5 million, though average order values increased. Chief Executive Officer Dusan Senkypl highlighted Project Foundry, the company's AI-native transformation initiative, noting progress after four months. Groupon expects growth to accelerate in the second half of 2026. The company's restructuring plan announced in May is on track to deliver $20-25 million in annualised cost savings.

Groupon group buying: why it failed and what comes next. Groupon didn't fail because group buying is a broken idea. It failed because its daily-deal model handed shoppers deep discounts while quietly destroying merchant margins and building almost no repeat business. Group buying - the mechanic of aggregating many buyers so a lower price unlocks for everyone - is still one of the most powerful demand engines in e-commerce. Groupon just monetized it in a way that burned the very merchants it depended on. That distinction matters, because the wrong lesson from Groupon is "group buying doesn't work." The right lesson is more useful: viral demand aggregation is real and valuable, but a discount model that ignores merchant economics and retention will collapse no matter how fast it grows. What was Groupon's group-buying model, exactly? Groupon's model was a daily deal that only "tipped" once enough people committed to buy. A local merchant offered a steep discount - often 50% off - on a voucher, Groupon then took roughly half of that already-discounted revenue as its fee, and the deal went live to a large email list. Shoppers shared it to hit the threshold, and once enough buyers signed up, everyone got the price. For a while, it looked unstoppable. Groupon reportedly rejected a roughly $6 billion acquisition offer from Google in late 2010, then went public in November 2011 in an IPO that valued the company at about $12.7 billion and raised $700 million. On its first day of trading, shares popped 40% to an intraday market cap near $17.8 billion. The demand-aggregation engine clearly worked. The business model underneath it did not. Why did Groupon fail? Groupon failed because the math broke the merchant side of the marketplace. Stack a 50% consumer discount on top of Groupon's ~50% cut and a merchant often netted only about a quarter of the item's normal price - frequently below cost. The customers a deal attracted were largely bargain hunters who rarely returned at full price, so merchants bought a rush of unprofitable, one-time traffic. "Businesses with unprofitable promotions reported low rates of spending by Groupon users beyond the Groupon's face value and low rates of return to the business again at full price." - Utpal Dholakia, Rice University When merchants stop coming back, a two-sided marketplace loses its supply, and no amount of consumer demand can save it. Add accounting controversies, a flood of copycat competitors, and near-zero switching costs, and the collapse followed fast. Groupon's market cap fell from a peak near $13.1 billion in 2011 to roughly $0.98 billion by mid-2026 - a loss of about 92%, with trailing revenue down to about $498 million in 2025. What did group buying get right? Group buying got the hardest part of commerce right: it made demand spread itself. Because a deal only unlocked once enough people joined, buyers had a built-in reason to recruit friends, and urgency compressed the decision. That combination - social sharing plus a threshold - produced remarkably cheap customer acquisition, which is exactly why the format exploded and why it keeps reappearing. For a deeper primer, see what group buying is and how it differs from flash sales. The clearest proof that the mechanic outlived Groupon is Pinduoduo. By making "team purchase" the default - invite friends, form a group, unlock the price - it grew into a platform with over 900 million annual buyers and roughly $60 billion in 2024 revenue. The Pinduoduo group-buying model kept Groupon's viral aggregation and discarded its margin-destroying economics. How does modern group buying compare to Groupon? Modern group buying keeps the viral trigger but fixes who pays for it. The table below shows how the daily-deal model, Pinduoduo's team-buy, and merchant-run Shopify group buying differ on the dimensions that actually decide whether a model survives. | Dimension | Groupon daily deals | Pinduoduo team-buy | Shopify group buying | | Who sets the discount | Platform pressures deep cuts | Platform + seller | Merchant sets it, with a floor | | Typical merchant take | ~25% of face value | Full price minus small discount | Full margin minus chosen discount | | Platform fee | ~50% of deal revenue | Low seller fees | No middleman cut | | Customer relationship | Owned by Groupon | Owned by platform | Owned by the merchant | | Retention after the deal | Very low | Habit-forming, app-based | First-party data enables follow-up | The pattern is clear. The models that endure let the seller protect margin and keep the customer relationship, instead of renting both to a platform. How modern Shopify group buying fixes Groupon's flaws. Modern group buying fixes Groupon's three fatal flaws - thin margins, no retention, and no data ownership - by moving the mechanic onto the merchant's own store. The merchant sets the discount and a minimum group size, so a deal only ever runs at a price that stays profitable. There is no platform taking half the revenue. Acquisition still comes from buyers inviting others to unlock the price, which keeps the viral loop that made Groupon famous while pushing customer acquisition cost down rather than margin. You can pressure-test that math with a customer acquisition cost calculator before launching a campaign. And because every sale happens on the merchant's storefront, the business keeps first-party data and can actually build the repeat purchases Groupon never delivered. This is the approach tools like Farabiulder bring to Shopify: Groupon's demand engine, without Groupon's self-destruct button. The real lesson of Groupon's rise and fall. The lesson is not that group buying failed - it is that a growth model built on other people's margins will eventually run out of people willing to lose money. Groupon proved demand aggregation can scale to a multibillion-dollar valuation in under three years. It also proved that if the merchants powering that demand can't make money and can't keep the customers they win, the whole marketplace unwinds just as fast. Modern group buying survives because it keeps the viral part Groupon got right and gives the economics back to the merchant. Frequently asked questions. Groupon failed because its daily-deal model destroyed merchant margins and built almost no repeat business. Merchants typically kept only about a quarter of a deal's face value, and Rice University found 32% of promotions were unprofitable. As merchant supply dried up, growth stalled and the stock collapsed. Is group buying dead after Groupon? No. Group buying is thriving - it was the model, not the mechanic, that failed. Pinduoduo turned team-based group buying into a platform with over 900 million annual buyers, and Shopify merchants now run group buying on their own stores while protecting margins and keeping customer data. What did Groupon get right about group buying? Groupon proved that aggregating many buyers around a single offer creates viral, self-spreading demand. Shoppers shared deals to unlock them, urgency drove fast conversions, and the format acquired customers cheaply. That demand-aggregation engine still works; Groupon simply monetized it in a way that harmed merchants. How is modern Shopify group buying different from Groupon? Modern Shopify group buying lets the merchant set the discount and a price floor, so margins stay protected. Buyers recruit friends to unlock the deal, lowering acquisition cost, and every sale happens on the merchant's own store - keeping first-party data and enabling retention Groupon never delivered. Sources & references. * Rice University. "Rice University: Groupon is More Beneficial for Consumers Than Businesses." [news2.rice.edu] * The Christian Science Monitor. "Groupon IPO Sets Market Value at $12.7 Billion." [csmonitor.com] * TechCrunch. "Groupon IPO Shares Pop 40% On First Trade, Debuts With A $17.8B Market Cap." [techcrunch.com] * CompaniesMarketCap. "Groupon (GRPN) Market Capitalization." [companiesmarketcap.com] * StockAnalysis. "Groupon (GRPN) Stock Overview and Revenue." [stockanalysis.com]