Groupon Launches Self-Serve Product for Small Businesses

Groupon wants to make it easier for small businesses to get in on the daily-deal game. On Monday, the Chicago-based daily-deal giant launched Deal Builder, which allows mom-and-pops to create their own promotions to run on Groupon’s website. “We always had a lot of demand from merchants reaching out to Groupon, but we weren’t always able to serve the needs for a lot of reasons,” says Groupon vice president of product development Dan Roarty. “We weren’t always able to get back to merchants,” he says. Deal Builder allows small businesses to create promotions that will launch in a week or sooner, according to Roarty. Once live, the deals will be searchable on Groupon’s online database. For businesses that are new to the daily deals market, the Deal Builder tool will suggest pricing and other details. Owners will always have the final say on specifics, however, says Roarty. Roarty says Groupon has been piloting Deal Builder for a couple of months and testing out the feature, which is now available to all interested businesses.