Online Deals | featured news

The last time Mark Stella went to the dentist he didn't need an insurance card. Instead, he pulled out a Groupon. Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month.

Groupon Inc sold more than 650,000 holiday deals between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an increase of 500 percent compared with last year, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Online shoppers spent record amounts on the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, making it the biggest online shopping day in history.

Many retailers are enjoying a Thanksgiving shopping spree lift from investors, but not Groupon. Its shares closed today down nine percent, settling at $15.24 after bouncing off a new low of $14.85. That’s less than half the $31.14 that some investors paid at the stock’s high point, just after it went public in early November. More recently, it has been trading in the low to mid-$20s.

When Groupon Inc filed its plan to go public with U.S. regulators in June, Chief Executive Andrew Mason proclaimed in a letter to prospective shareholders that "life is too short to be a boring company."

Groupon, the company that pioneered online group discounts, saw its stock climb by nearly a third in its public debut Friday, showing strong demand for an Internet company whose business model is considered unsustainable by some analysts. Groupon's stock jumped $6.40, or 32 percent, to $26.40 in late morning Friday after trading began at about 10:45 a.m. Earlier, the stock was trading as high as $31.14. Big fluctuations are common for companies that have just gone public as investors gauge what to do with the stock. The stock is trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol "GRPN."

Groupon Inc is poised to price its IPO $1 to $2 above its current range, responding to stronger than anticipated demand for the biggest U.S. initial public offering in months, three buyside sources said.

Groupon Inc is considering raising its IPO price range, as underwriters grow more confident about demand after completing the East Coast leg of a two-week roadshow to woo investors.

Google Inc unveiled big changes to its fledgling daily deals business on Thursday in the midst of rival Groupon Inc's IPO roadshow.

The bottom line: Uniting consumers under Groupon’s umbrella isn’t that easy, as its business model isn’t sustainable. The company has little bargaining power with product suppliers, and no barriers of entry to protect its businesses from competition.