One of the girls at my salon received an email just recently from Living Social expressing to her that she was to honor the certificates up to 5 years. This is some straight up BS because they DO NOT express this to ANYONE up front when they sales pitch you to sign up.....This is a SCAM if you ask me....it's bad enough that when you sign up to run this special you have already reduced the value of your service in half and then have to share any profits with the company which is ANOTHER half....Having US (Small business owners) to reduce our value and services.
I have been receiving calls from a girl from Groupon wanting me to run daily specials with them and I expressed to her that I think I've learned that my value is worth so much more then dealing with chair hopping customers that don't know the value of a REAL service by not even tipping or returning as a client because all they do is purchase these coupons on a regular just to get the next deal! There has to be a loop whole in this system where we as the retailers were misguided and conned to sign up in hopes that we will get new business walking through our doors? Anna Creations by Anna Z-James www.annazjames.com 702-927-8831 -----Original Message----- From: Michelle Phoenix <[email protected]> To: nailtech <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, Jan 17, 2012 8:44 pm Subject: Re: NailTech:: Groupon - ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY DO NOT DO IT Sadly no, gotta honor the whole thing. I'm going to make some calls tomorrow just to be sure. *le sigh* On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:56 PM, shawn wilson <[email protected]> wrote: As far as the 5 yrs to honor the certificate, you only have to honor the face value, the client will have to pay the balance. That is how the law reads. Shawn On Jan 17, 2012 9:51 PM, "Michelle Phoenix" <[email protected]> wrote: Let me share my experience with you guys. First off, there are only ever 2 or 3 techs on per day in my spa. Second of all, I have spent just about my entire career saying no to doing coupons of any sort and I should have stuck to my guns. Having spent a ton of money on a newer, larger spa, I wanted to get clients in for our new services. Groupon had been courting me for months so I finally decided to talk to them. I told them I wanted to do something to promote my skincare services. They said no. We are known for our nail care and that's what they wanted to sell. They said we could upsell the clients on the skin care when they got there. That hasn't worked out b/c they just buy Groupons for discounted skin care at some othe spa who fell for this crap. I only wanted to sell a few hundred, because we're small. They said no, you have to sell 2,000. Long story short, I was so anxious about getting new clients in to the spa I agreed to 1,000 and they said we'd never sell out. We sold out in under 24 hours. Well now, even though the "expiration date" is coming up, I can not, by Massachussets law, turn people away after February 2nd. I have to continue to accept them until they're all used or 5 years pass. Whichever comes first. I could just scream!!! I have no one to blame but myself. On top of it all, the spa gets $21 for each $70 of service and I still have to pay my girls their commission on the $70 fee. In other words, I take in $21 from the Groupon but pay out $38.50. It's costing me $17,500!!! GAH!!! I'm sending this email from my personal address and ommitting my signature b/c if clients Google the spa, I don't want them to find this email. Just because I've screwed myself doesn't mean I have to make them feel bad about getting a bargain. M- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NailTech" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nailtech?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NailTech" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nailtech?hl=en.
