Groupon Inc Gets A Look At More Coupon Competition

Groupon Inc.

got a look at yet more competition Tuesday as Twitter Inc.

unveiled a new online coupon system. Groupon was nearly unchanged on the news, trading recently at $7.49 a share, down 0.2 percent. Twitter fell 0.85 percent to $39.85. Twitter launched a test Tuesday of the system in which merchants offer discounts on their products via advertising on the Twitter Web site. Consumers add the offers to their credit cards, which are then used to redeem the offers at the merchant's store or Web site. Advertisers "can effectively measure the return on investment from their promotions, even when redemption happens offline," Twitter Group Product Manager Tarun Jain said. Additionally, merchants use their existing payment network to redeem offers. "There's no change to the consumer purchase process, no employee training and no new hardware or software to install," Jain said. From its outset six years ago Groupon, has faced competition from a nearly endless list of e-commerce advertising sites. Its shares are down nearly 24 percent in the year to date, but recently got a lift from its third quarter earnings report. The company, which has been trying to shift its business model from an e-mail-based list of "daily deals" to a more fully featured e-commerce business, beat third quarter estimates and said it will seek partners to expand its operations in Asia. http://investor.groupon.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=879468