[ghshephard]

"most of the revenue goes into the retailer's pocket"

I thought the standard model at Groupon was 50% to Groupon (who carries no inventory, or service costs) and 50% to the retailer (who carries all the costs of the product sold to the customer).

Outside of advertising and sales, Groupon is close to 100% margin (they carry a bit of the per-coupon merchandising and servicing cost)- the retailer carries all the cost of the product that the customer actually buys.