Guidelines written for dealing with Groupon

Emma Williams
By Emma Williams August 23, 2013 10:16

The European Golf Course Owners’ Association (EGCOA) has issued guidelines to all European golf clubs for dealing with third party tee time resellers such as Groupon and AmazonLocal.

A number of golf clubs have complained that using external non-golf websites such as Groupon and AmazonLocal to market and sell tee times have unsustainably devalued golf, taken money out of the game and taken power away from golf venues, even though the campaigns are often successful at increasing footfall to a club.

For example, Steve Rumball, manager of Chalgrave Manor Golf Club in Befordshire, said: “We were not allowed to decide how much to set the deal at – Groupon tell us that we are to charge £29 for a two-ball voucher or £54 for a four-ball voucher, which includes coffee and a bacon roll plus 18 holes for all players. These rounds could be played midweek or weekends.

“The end user buys the voucher from Groupon, who keep all the money until it is used at my club. I then have to take the voucher and correctly process it back to Groupon. Two weeks after I’ve provided the food and golf, I get paid 50 per cent of the voucher value from Groupon.

“If the voucher is never redeemed, Groupon keep 100 percent of the money.”

And the chair of the Organisation of Golf and Range Operators, Colin Jenkins, warned of the practice, carried out by some tee time sales companies, in which they are prepared to market the club for free – provided they choose when the tee times are and what the discount is.

“This is the scariest development of them all, as golf clubs then lose control of their tee sheet and pricing structure to someone else,” he said. “The clubs end up undercutting themselves!

“It puts golf clubs in the same position as farmers, when it comes to negotiating prices for their produce with supermarkets. Supermarkets now dictate the produce, its colour, size and taste, and then proceed to impose very tough payment terms.

“If golf clubs are not careful, they may suffer the same fate.”

As a result, EGCOA has issued guidelines that state that golf courses should promote as much sales as possible directly through their own websites, pro shops or call centres, and that any work with third party tee time resellers should strictly be to drive incremental business and fill soft demand periods, and that this should be part of a marketing plan that positions the resellers as part of a supporting strategy only.

EGCOA adds that golf clubs must sign a written contract with the reseller that details that the club has the right to a penalty-free termination of the contract with immediate effect at all times.

The contract, says EGCOA, must also state that clubs should have the right to require that their own posted rates and promotions are the best offers at all times, that the golf clubs must have access to and ownership of all pertinent data, that the barter payment model is not adopted, that tee times can not be auctioned, that rules regarding search engine optimisation are agreed in advance and that the club has the power to choose which tee time inventory is used. In total, EGCOA has issued 22 rules that clubs should adopt to avoid some of the pitfalls that clubs have fallen into.

EGCOA president Alexander Baron von Spoercken said: “Like the airline and hotel industry, the last few years has witnessed a significant shift in the golf industry to the trend of online booking. If managed correctly, the power of the web and online booking platforms can be harnessed to drive additional revenue for a golf facility.

“We have released these best practices to provide clarity and direction for our members across Europe, allowing them to see the big picture and make informed and educated decisions based on the facts when dealing with third party tee time resellers.”

He added: “Thanks to the experience of our American and Canadian owners’ associations we have been able to learn from some of the negative implications that poor practices have had on their markets.

“With this insight we aim to be proactive in avoiding some of the pitfalls experienced in North America and to educate our members to the best of our ability.

A spokeswoman for Groupon said that the company does not dictate to golf clubs, but instead works with them to fill up unused tee times.

“Groupon are keen to be seen as a core part of a golf club’s marketing mix,” she said.

“We work with individual golf clubs to understand their specific marketing objectives and put together compelling offers for consumers that meet the club’s marketing needs and cost considerations.

“We work with golf clubs nationwide to attract new players to market, to fill underutilised tee times and difficult to market times of year, and to raise awareness of clubs to local markets and visiting consumers. Clubs also have the opportunity to showcase their products and services and increase their customer base as well as the opportunity to upsell and cross sell their merchandise and products.

“Groupon rely on long standing business partnerships built upon successful campaigns in collaboration with clubs that meet the businesses’ marketing requirements with customer demand.”

 

Emma Williams
By Emma Williams August 23, 2013 10:16
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8 Comments

  1. Carole August 29, 12:39

    We had first hand experience with Groupon as we have a Golf course and outdoor activity centre.
    We used Group on for filling up slots for paint balling with although selling 2000 tickets which netted Group on 10,000 and us zero they attached themselves next to our website for over a year so when people clicked on what they thought was an offer from us . They were directed too another company with an offer!
    We never used Group on for Golf after this bad expierance and we now have a policy never to devalue the product . All offers are generated from within house .Fine if you can gaureentee secondary spend, but most people take the offer and go home. Leaving the expectation that they will wait for more offers!

    Reply to this comment
  2. steve rumball August 29, 12:29

    Thank you Emma….

    Whilst the information attributed to me in the above article is wholly correct, there is one fundamental piece of information missing from it….when the rep from Groupon had finished her spiel about how wonderful this deal was going to be for me, I told her my office door looks much better open and perhaps she could leave it like that as she went through it on the way out in 30 seconds time!

    Collectively, we, as Golf Clubs, need to work together, to market our own packages, creating our own electronic database, and keeping the revenues and profits for ourselves. It is not that complicated, we own all the venues!! I established http://www.e-teeoff.co.uk 18 months ago to directly combat the groupon/2 for 1 schemes. As we sell our own vouchers and create our own database and make our own profits, then the profits will be distributed back amongst the clubs that support the scheme. We can then control the prices and offers that we want to make, not some third party organisation who does not own or operate a single golf club, just wants us to discount our fees by 50% or more whilst they keep the lions share! Madness!

    Reply to this comment
  3. @BedsCountyGolf August 29, 12:23

    Interesting view on Golf Courses use of Group On -http://t.co/r9m1gRNQVy

    Reply to this comment
  4. Gru Gruber August 23, 20:55

    I hope no one from Chalgrave Manor reads this other Steve will probably lose his job for utter incompentence!

    Reply to this comment
  5. Anthony Haste (@AnthonyHastePGA) August 23, 18:32

    This is why you shouldn’t use Groupon. Promote yourself & make more £££ Guidelines written for dealing with Groupon http://t.co/NaZh7uDgmQ

    Reply to this comment
  6. Alberto Borjas CEO of Peekadso August 23, 16:37

    Groupon, Living Social and other deal sites that run more or less the same business model have actually hurt many businesses. I co-founded http://www.peekadso.com to put control back into the hands of business owners.

    Consumers just want a deal and businesses want to make money. We’ve combined these two aspects into something that benefits everyone. Businesses get to keep their full profits and consumers get the deals they are looking for.

    We allow businesses to post deals on http://www.Peekadso.com as they see fit. We do not control any aspect of their deals. They decide on how many vouchers to allow to be downloaded, they decide the price of these vouchers. The best part of all is consumers pay the merchants directly at time of service.

    We launched our site on June 23rd of this year and have been receiving a lot of great feedback from local companies signing up with us. We have the infrastructure to provide our services Nationwide at the moment, and we have been receiving some interest from business owners overseas. The sky’s the limit; please keep your fingers crossed for us. We’re really trying our hardest to make things right for everyone.

    Alberto Borjas
    Peekadso CEO & Co-Founder
    Cell: (786) 269-3388
    alberto.borjas@peekadso.com

    Reply to this comment
  7. London Scottish GC (@londscotgc) August 23, 11:35

    Here’s why we’ve not got involved with Groupon and their ilk: http://t.co/6bMfFTaTVR

    Reply to this comment
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