Groupon, the three year old coupon company, has been all the hype across business and tech sites lately. The company is the largest of its competitors and claims it distributes online coupons from merchants in 500 markets and 44 countries. Facebook and Google, in an attempt to get a piece of the action, have recently rolled out similar services.

As Groupon gears up for its much-anticipated IPO, there's a lot of noise about social coupon services, and less concrete advice about how to use them. It's a good time to outline some of the potentially harmful effects that Groupon and other daily-deal services can have on your business.


...






_ More...