After it had already closed a number of stores in Morocco, Panama, Puerto Rico, Taiwan and Thailand, ailing deal site Groupon will now also close its divisions in Switzerland, Austria and Portugal.
“Focus on fewer countries”
Customers who visit Groupon’s websites in any of the three aforementioned countries, will no longer be able to do so. Those that have already bought a coupon on the website, are referred to the customer service.
It is yet another setback for Groupon: the CEO and founder Andrew Mason already left and it was revealed in November that a lot of jobs would be lost. It also closed websites in the Philippines, Morocco, Panama, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Thailand and Uruguay, following shutting down in Greece and Turkey and selling off its majority stake in South Korean Ticket Monster.
Groupon used to be active in more than 40 countries, but it was increasingly harder to warrant its expansion and that has now resulted in a 25 % reduction of countries. “We have to focus our attention and dollars on fewer countries. It is a hard decision, but it is a necessary step in our journey”, COO Rich Williams already wrote in a post blog.
