CHICAGO — Groupon is furloughing “significant portions” of its sales and sales operations teams in North America as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic hits the Chicago-based daily deals site.
The company, which launched more than 11 years ago with a two-for-one pizza deal at a Chicago bar, was already facing obstacles. It ousted its CEO last month after reporting a disappointing fourth-quarter performance and plans to reduce costs.
Those cost-reduction efforts will not be enough, Groupon’s interim CEO Aaron Cooper said in a Monday email to employees. Cooper announced the job cuts in the email, and said he expects to “extend these and other actions, including layoffs.”
“We, like the rest of the world, have been shocked by how fast the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the daily lives of our merchants, our customers and our employees,” he said in the letter. “For a marketplace focused on connecting local merchants and consumers, this has been a particularly significant business challenge.”
A spokesman declined to comment on how many people were furloughed or laid off. Cooper’s letter said he expected all impacted employees in North America would be notified by midweek.
When Groupon took off, it was considered one of the city’s great tech success stories after the dot-com boom. Its business model resonated with recession-scarred customers and small merchants, and in 2010, it turned down a nearly $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and opted to go public instead.
It debuted on Nasdaq in November 2011 at $28 — a price it hasn’t seen since.
Groupon has spent the past several years scaling back and reconfiguring the ways it reaches consumers. In February, then-CEO Rich Williams announced the company would halt its online merchandise sales.
Cooper said in the email to employees that the decision was tough but necessary.
“We don’t know when the disruption from COVID-19 will end, but when it does, we want to be well-positioned to continue making progress on our local experiences strategy,” he said.
———
©2020 Chicago Tribune
Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.