Lawsuits and Probes Don’t Slow Down Groupon’s Latest Acquisition
OpenCal, the online appointment scheduling and booking site, has been taken in by Groupon. Though the announcement was made just this week, it’s reported that the acquisition may have quietly taken place sometime in September.
OpenCal posted this on their site:
“We wanted to share the good news that OpenCal has been acquired and is now part of Groupon!”
“We’re excited by this opportunity to bring our online appointment booking platform to a broad set of merchants and consumers world-wide. Today we announced an exciting next step, the latest version of our product available as ‘Groupon Scheduler‘.”
“Our existing OpenCal product will continue to operate for current users until further notice and we anticipate that we’ll be able to offer additional capabilities in the future now that we have the support of Groupon behind us. We’re very grateful for your support and look forward to continuing to advance online booking.”
Groupon seamlessly integrates the Groupon Scheduler in their service. Consumers can schedule or cancel appointments through their account on Groupon’s site after purchasing the deal. It’s a matter of convenience for the user, but bears some very useful information for the vendors as well.
Establishments can also use the feature to book and schedule appointments even if they are not offering deals on Groupon.
It seems the acquisitions are coming quickly after Groupon’s infamous IPO, a development that grew in hype and deflated shortly thereafter. The industry leader is exploring different ways to extend its business model, laying down a new revenue model with each major development. Nevertheless, we’re likely to see more mergers and acquisitions from Groupon in the coming year. Its competitors are hot on its tale, carving out every imaginable niche from the cornucopia of Deals.
Groupon’s also been facing some legal trouble, as its business methods raise more questions regarding vendor concerns. There’s an ongoing investigation in the UK, looking into Groupon’s advertising process. The deals site has also been sued by a Chicago startup, accusing Groupon of altering merchant contracts.
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