My Groupon Addiction
ByHello, my name is Helen, and I’m addicted to Groupon.
As some of you may know, Groupon is a Chicago-based company, and it started here. For the life of me I can’t figure out what’s in it for the restaurants and retailers that participate, other than extra publicity coming into people’s inboxes. And as for the look-I’m-funny-and-really-clever descriptions that Groupon uses to promote them, well–I usually roll my eyes and wonder who’s writing this stuff. Whenever I get onto craigslist.org I see that Groupon is hiring. Again. I’ve even provided references for a few people so that Groupon would hire them, at least temporarily.
Despite my skepticism and my desire to take a red pen to Groupon’s everyday emails, however, I still get on and buy, buy, buy. In this economy a deal’s a deal, after all, and if Groupon’s offering me a discounted meal at a place I eat anyway, hey, I’m there. I rather like showing up at a restaurant and not having to pay anything but the tip. Even though your resulting discount isn’t THAT big, it at least makes you feel like it is since you’ve paid in advance.
And, as a Chicago-based part-time foodie, I do find a lot of value in learning about new restaurants in my area. If there’s a $5 Groupon for a hot dog place in Evanston I’ve never tried, why not get it? If there’s a Groupon for a vegetarian restaurant in the city my husband might enjoy, I’ll purchase that too. Despite myself, I find that Groupon is making it possible for me to go places I usually don’t think to try. Even writing for a Chicago magazine regularly like I do, there are about 639 restaurants in this area I’ve never heard of. I’m constantly amazed at how many eating places this cityscape boasts that I will probably never step into.
The end result is that I’ve got 17 Groupons bought and paid for, waiting for me to print them out and use them. I like to log into my Groupon account and wonder when I’m going to have time, between working and kids’ activities and various social/family obligations and trying to find a babysitter, to use up any of these deals. Yeah, that’s what I do when I’m not on Facebook.
Oh wait, maybe that’s it? They wait for me to not show up, and they get the money and don’t have to shell anything out to me in return. To date, I have let one Groupon go unused. It was for Par-King Golf, which is a mini-golf place that doesn’t let kids under 12 in at all. WTF? I didn’t read the fine print first, and I couldn’t figure out when and how to go without my son.
So here’s the main reason I use Groupon–I love food, and I can’t always justify dining out otherwise. I HAVE to use up these things by the expiration date, right? So Groupon gives me an excuse to pack my family up in the car and go out to eat. Otherwise it’d be me trying to cook healthy food every day, and that would just be bad.
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that if I write about a restaurant here for the next few months, I probably used a Groupon to pay for my meal. Thanks, Groupon, for adding flavor to my life. At least until the trend dies down and you disappear into the footnotes of e-commerce history.
