Hi all,

Lately there's a lot of hype surrounding "group buying purchases" such as Groupon, LivingSocial and many more. I'm sure there some of you guys in the community would like to build the same, at least a site that provides similar functionality and features on how group buying sites operate.

First, I think we need a payment gateway system to it. And then, self service sign-ups for businesses, daily newsletters.

Please shed some light on this topic and what modules you think are appropriate to develop one.

Thanks,
yeeloon

Comments

boreg’s picture

I'm also very interested in this but i think you have to create your own custom module or maybe this can help http://drupal.org/project/uc_discount or http://drupal.org/project/uc_discount_total can inspire you?

yeeloon’s picture

Will definitely look into it, and will update further once I've got something running.

Drupallers,

Meanwhile, this topic should be used for future Groupons clones ala Drupal. Free feel to share your ideas and solutions.

Cheers!

yeeloon’s picture

Updates: May 20, 2010
==============

Ubercart Limited Time Offer - http://drupal.org/project/uc_lto

iSheng’s picture

I am seeking the solution too, groupon is really hot nowadays.

lameei’s picture

+1

mattez’s picture

Hi, my client needs setup minimal count of orders needed to "activate" (change status of) product/sale.
BEST way to solve this? THANX U ALL

gakshay’s picture

A list of module is indeed required to kick start the groupon kind of site.

As I'm new to drupal framework and need same functionality of groupon.

Firstly: Methodology to build with blocks, views, context, panels. Whats the preferred way? I personally found panels very good to layout the site without theming and CSS to start.

Secondly, modules needed for basic functionality.
CCK => basic and surely needed
Ubercart => for payment gateway => provides PRODUCT content-type
panels => layout
features => to release complete functionality as a feature
rules => for crons e.g. to send emails

Still figuring out more and more modules that can achieve the functionality. Would like to hear expert comments/suggestions/help :)

Akshay

charlie-s’s picture

This page is #1 on Google for the topic, so I will contribute my thoughts here.

I have posted about this topic @ ubercart.org (http://www.ubercart.org/forum/ideas_and_suggestions/16868/coupon_product) and eventually got my own solution in place. The thing to realize, and what I eventually discovered, is that Groupon only stands apart from standard ecommerce in 2 ways:

- how it is perceived (user interface)
- "tipping point" before a product can be purchased (I have not had any clients that actually wanted to duplicate this function)

If you're trying to clone Groupon as opposed to creating your own unique model, you'll want to attach products to a taxonomy term like a city, e.g. New York (Taxonomy). You'll want to display the % in savings, original price, and sales price (CCK fields). You'll want to give each product and each order a unique identifier that is printed on the receipt and can be verified by your customers (CCK, Ubercart, Conditional Actions). This last step varies depending on how you want to notify your clients that their coupons have been sold -- i.e. do you want them to get an email every time a coupon is sold (Conditional Actions), do you want them to have an online location where they can login and view their sales (Views / UC Views), or ???

In short, Groupon is just a good, specific, intentional user interface on top of a basic ecommerce model.

bherumurti’s picture

Does anyone know how to execute payment when certain number of people bought the product?

JimNastic’s picture

Hi,

I think you could build what you want with the Paypal API. You can "Authorize" payment when the buyer originally signs up, then "Capture" the payment when the threshold is reached. Otherwise you cancel the authorization.

https://www.x.com/community/ppx/adaptive_payments

sandeepss’s picture

this does not look trivial - I think that you need to implement your own hook_ca_predicate, hook_ca_condition and hook_ca_action

Can someone else correct me ?

gakshay’s picture

You will need referral points (amount) to be credited to the referrer for viral marketing.
say, referrer gets $10 once your referral orders first time. We need multiple things to work together in this scenario.
1. invite module
2. referral module (for user referral links) => change the [join-link] to [referral-link] in invite mail body to make sure all invitations and referrals are done by USER REFERRAL LINK
3. contact_importer module + openinviter library or plaxo JS widget
4. Userpoints module so that user can get points on various scenario like login, register, referral etc
5. userpoints_ubercart module to configure how much points be credited to REFERRER once referral purchases on the site

A combination of all are good for anyone who is looking for same kinda functionality. Would like to hear comments or other ways to achieve the same.

How about tipping point feature + payments on hold using Authorize.net (CIM) ?? How to achieve the same ?? suggestions

andrews501’s picture

I was wondering who is available to do a programming here? Maybe modifying some modules could make the trick. I have been working on a website that uses precisely all these modules that gakshay mentions. But it needs a bit of customization in terms of theme, for example, as I was using uberdrupal.

juanlacueva’s picture

I have a client that wants to do a site very similar to Groupon including the tipping point. So I'll will be helping here.

I think this is too complex for a forum thread. Wouldn't be easier if we make a group or something?

kayusee’s picture

Hello, juanlacueva How did you make the tipping point functionality using Ubercart?

thriftyngreen’s picture

Have you got this working btw ? Just curious if there was something out there. Seems great

meefanyung’s picture

I found this site using drupal & ubercart for groupon clone

http://deal.com.sg/

but don't have any detail what module he used and who develope this site.

Just say that Drupal+Ubercart can do Groupon Clone.

AlonGoldberg’s picture

subscribe

aamin’s picture

subscribe

thriftyngreen’s picture

I am very interested in this for our site. I would like to ask if anyone has started putting this together as the list of modules above does seem like a great start and there are some Groupon Clones out there in PHP so I was just wondering if that Group was going to be created or is it just in limbo but an active forum so curious. I cannot code in PHP so just at the mercy of what comes down the pike.

also has anyone given thought to modifying the UC Affiliate module to provide cashback rewards to customers? Basically making an affiliate a customer and tracking purchases and giving the customer back x percent of sale.

Thanks

thrivehd’s picture

-sbscrb- Thanks!

Tabestan’s picture

I guess a lot of us have an interest in this.

Let's do a group so we can share ideas.

Regards.

brian brovelli’s picture

staying tuned

jaimeah’s picture

We are currently running a Deal of the Day portal, and it has a lot of moving parts and different functionality associated with it.

* Of course, the Group Buying Portal. It is different from regular commerce, based on a set of parameters which are not usually considered, but probably could be mimicked by UberCart, the main differences I've found are the tipping point and the timer for the deals.

* An Important aspect is the mareketing aspect of it: We use MailCimp to send out email campagins, but we also do a lot of FB advertising, which we track using bit.ly. We run sweepstakes to get additional customers, we post to twitter and FB our Deals, and we have several Landing Pages based on the promotion effort we are conducting.

Amongst other things. We are looking at using Drupal to better manage our FB fan base, and to focus our campagins better, coupled with the FB Insights statistics. Also, we are considering developing widgets to deliver deals around the net to different content providers.

It would be wonderful if we could combine this in a single platform, such as Drupal.

kenwen’s picture

subscribing

v interesting indeed!

Abilnet’s picture

+1 here. This is something I've been looking as well.

limux21’s picture

Subscribe. Many thanks

nsyll’s picture

subscribing

akhan’s picture

Has anyone got it working yet?

There were talks about creating a group for this. Could someone post a link?

Could hook_ca_action, hook_ca_condition and or hook_ca_trigger could be used to tipp the deal?

How are you storing merhant details e.g. name, location, phone, fax, google maps etc?

Many thanks for help.

Road Runner’s picture

Hi everyone. I am proposing to those interested we agree to help one another solve the various issues that confront us in creating a drupal 7 based Groupon/Living Social site.
The mission here is to put together a Coupon and daily deals Drupal 7 solution serving Smart phone and iPad and lap top users in a location aware way. Identify and break out the sections in a coupon site e.g. payment, email, social, tell a friend, location aware etc. Recognize the need for massive scale and keep aware of what has been done to meet the needs of very busy sites. Use off the shelf modules where possible, customize or fork them if necessary or write custom modules that will meet the needs of a coupon or daily deals site.

If this appeals to you drop by http://madmendeals.com read the book page in nav bar Cooperative Solution to Daily Deals Web Site it is the start of what I hope will become a quick and inexpensive way to get this done.The first book page begins to identify and breakout the needs of such a site. Pay attention to the home page it should recognize your browser location just after the word Welcome. Register at the site and drop me an email either here or at site to let me know you are interested. Send your questions etc. Once we get a cooperative going I prefer Skype for communication and it can be conferenced too(I believe).

A minimum of five people with perhaps 10 or 12 as the upper organizational limit would be useful to get this done in say a month. The larger number would be good if it becomes necessary to pay for development. Some custom work on commerce for example but if 10 people chip in that might only be $100 per person for reasonable and well defined project.

Anyway I believe this has merit. Send me your thoughts and lets get started tomorrow.

kenwen’s picture

i'm still using D6 though but am willing to contribute (financially) to developing a cool solution

Tabestan’s picture

About drupal 7, it looks that a lot of modules are not ported yet (uc_lto...).

How are you storing merhant details e.g. name, location, phone, fax, google maps etc?

CCK, Content Profile, Gmap.

Great initiative, I'm willing to see a drupal distribution with a features server...

Road Runner’s picture

Kenwen and Tabestan thank you for responding. I believe that the critical modules are in place in D7 although they still may need some work but then again our particular needs may dictate that too. I started a page over on http://madmendeals.com and if you would like to get going on this just check the Cooperative Solution link in nav bar. Just a start. Please register and I'll change your roles to Partner which will give you more permissions. Let me know what part of project you would like to begin researching (if you have an area of expertise that would be helpful) - the page I mentioned lists how I see things breaking out but if you see it breaking differently or I forgot something let me know. Also let me know how to contact you - I prefer Skype but whatever works for all of us.
I believe once we get going we can attract a few more hardy souls and actually achieve something useful for us all.

Any thoughts for organizing and assignment and communication are welcome.
I think once I hear from you I'll start a new thread and see if we can attract a few others to this.

Best regards

kenwen’s picture

Hi Road Runner

I've been using ubercart and d6 for about three years to run my online business - have some specific ideas for group buying and can contribute marketing and selling ideas to a solution

Other than that I'm good at breaking things :)

glad to see things going ahead, v keen to see a good solution as the business model is hot right now

Road Runner’s picture

Kenwen thanks for stepping up. I have changed your role to coop partner and unblocked it at the site so now you can contribute to the book pages among other things.
How about taking lead with the D7 commerce module. I have installed it and messed with it some but it needs some expert love. I'll be happy to discuss.

Let me know how you would like to proceed.

sol1313’s picture

I am currently in the process of creating a groupon type site. I am willing to contribute any way I can. I am hoping to have the site up in less than a month and I am working with a couple other programmers to get it done. Let me know where you are at and how I can help.

shadowxx’s picture

Hi, I'm making groupon like website. I decieded to use taxonomy to categorize cities (for example mysite.com/sydney). I have to show only latest node (offer powered by ubercart) per taxonomy. So I cloned default taxonomy view from views and limited showing nodes to only one.

My problem: I use CCK Blocks (CONDITIONS, PARTNER, HIGHLIGHTS etc.) and put them in regions defined in node-product.tpl. Problem is that I can't show CCK blocks related to last node in taxonomy view (even there is showing only one node). CCK blocks can be only shown on node page. Any solution?

Maybe there is even other way to make mysite.com/sydney page and show on it only latest node from taxonomy?

kenwen’s picture

Going through the flurry of group buying sites and seeing what I need to implement

Locality - smart IP, taxonomy (for locations)
User profiles
Group buying - ubercart, limited time offers, tipping point offers, competitive offers
Partners - ubercart affiliate, ubercart discount coupons
Lead Generation - mailing list management, facebook integration, twitter integration

Bo-Expert’s picture

+ noted ;)

Tabestan’s picture

I will like to have a follow-up with people interested in this project.

A new module for Drupal 7 was released: http://drupal.org/project/commerce_coupon

If people have used that module, let us know.

jimmyg164’s picture

Very interested the Singapore site looks very good

would love to find out more

quardz’s picture

I developing Groupon clone here. http://dev1.doubleyourdiscount.com/

Still under construction

Road Runner’s picture

Good stuff you got there quardz. I am screwing around with D7 (a glutton for punishment I guess).

jimmyg164’s picture

In Order to move this forward I would like to start with making a list of the contributed modules

Drupal core

CCK
Views
Ubercart
Date
filefield
simplenews
thickbox

any other to add to the list would be appreciated

quardz’s picture

Better to make as install profile. I trying here to do http://dev.doubleyourdiscount.com

More Modules :
drupal.org/project/jquery_countdown
schedule
computed field

gterez’s picture

subscribing

quardz’s picture

Needs to draw perfect requirements.

The business process is 3 way.

Store owner <=> Site admin <=> Customers

Store owners will sign up and add their offer/deal
Admin will verify it and publish it.
Needs to think of admin commission on every deal.

And groupon is site per city, we can make it using domain module / or multisite option.

more features are welcome.

P.S : sorry for my bad English

jimmyg164’s picture

I have now started to build a groupon clone

I have setup core

and added the following modules (so far)
admin_menu (because i like it for moving around)
cck
date
filefild
google analytics
imagefield
jquery_countdown
lightbox2
simplenews
token
ubercart
views

activated the above modules

added image field to the content type product

i plan to use the product content type to hold my deals

added uc_lto
jquery_ui

this now gives me the expiration of product with a countdown for limited product offers

is there any good themers out there to give advice on macking this look good

quardz’s picture

I have half done work here http://dev1.doubleyourdiscount.com/ and willing to give the code and we all can work. Better to discuss the Scope and features first before start the development.

Better to develop as installation profile. Any one willing to provide the server. I can Theme for drupal and Ubercart.

jimmyg164’s picture

I would love to get involved

and create an install profile

If it can be done on groupon then our install profile should do it

so

at a top level we need

the ability to

create deals, allow companies to post deals and users to buy deals

we also need apps

for iphone, android, blackberry and windows smartphones

regards

quardz’s picture

I think needs of following features too
1) Deals Per city
2) Separate dashboard for Sellers and buyers
3) Affiliate and referral earnings
4) Social media publishing

jimmyg164’s picture

I notice you have html pages wrapping your pages

would it not be better to just use php templates

and how did you theme the content type product did you use a php tpl page

quardz’s picture

I created the theme using artisteer, But theme needs rework from scratch. I planned for separate tpl for product. Lets work from scratch to bring clean and quality.

kenwen’s picture

Hiya,

I can provide plenty of space on a shared server hosting account if that helps?

Been away for a while on other work but really keen to get the deal of the day idea back on track

Ken

quardz’s picture

How to start the work? With whom and all. Whats is the role of every only. Requirements collections.

jimmyg164’s picture

First of all we need a wiki style thing going on

so we can add questions answers

then a list of requirements

then we can discuss the modules

as we know there are a number of ways to crack an egg

kenwen’s picture

Happy to set up a wiki install on a subdomain on one of my sites

let me know if this will be of help and how many people would be interested

kenwen’s picture

My main skills and experience are marketing and business process so coding is not where I can contribute!

Re: shared space, let me know how you want to set it up

Cheers,
Ken

jimmyg164’s picture

what about using

amazon it give out a basic instance for free

Road Runner’s picture

Yea I'm a glutton for punishment.

Please check http://madmendeals.com
You should see your city or town in welcome message at top

Click on button called Today's Deal for Test City
This should take you to coupon and merchant display with a buy button.

Click on add to cart and go ahead and finish purchase - there is no credit card just test.
I am hoping it will register you automatically on site.

You can currently sign up for newsletter either the news or the deals - I'm using Mail Chimp. Sign u for news if you want to stay in touch that way.

Any comments and thoughts are most welcome. I am willing to work with others on this but as I said Drupal 7

Best to all

quardz’s picture

Problem with D7 is, still many modules like Views, Ubercart, Nodewords are in alphas, betas. And many modules yet to ported. But D7 is ok as far as it have enough modules to do with.

jimmyg164’s picture

would it not be better to go D6 just now with an upgrade path

thinking start

D6 & Zen subtheme

quardz’s picture

I too think so, Going with D6 now and later we can upgrade to D7

charlie-s’s picture

D7 would be better as the new Drupal Commerce platform is much more dynamic than anything from D6.

Road Runner’s picture

Yup, Commerce for D7 seems to have lots of promise. It is difficult to figure out - no docs but Ryan the lead developer has a profile install that helps a little. In fact if you go to home page and click on Today's Deal then click on Buy and check out you'll see how it works. Still some stuff to work out e.g. like making anything in cart invalid after the coupon expires and only allowing a single coupon purchase. Try here http://madmendeals.com I'd appreciate a little feedback.

I expect heavy use of Views and am using Panels and trying Display Suite. I think Context might have a role (for differentiating cities and states. I haven't successfully figured out how to generate redemption codes (barcode module is crap, no docs), looking at computed field.
I am using Mail Chimp - please everyone who has interest drop by and sign up for newsletter (different than the deal news).

I am open to collaboration.

quardz’s picture

Open to any better suggestion. But we needs to clear in the business flow of the script.

1) Sellers Sign up and fill their offers with (Price, Minimum sales to meet the deal, Deals date, Commission for the admin, city, Actual price, Offer Price)

2) Admin versify the product and publish it, (Do needs extra commission for admin to show the deal in front page?)

3) Commissions / Store Credits for Friend Referrals to the members.

I like KISS Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

Expecting More Suggestions.

kenwen’s picture

From a business point of view, we'd probably want to add

Generate list of potential end user customers and segment by location
Generate list of potential vendors

Methods of blasting out offers (email, social media)

kenwen’s picture

Hey all,

have just set up some space for collaboration on building a solution for this

send me an email if you'd like to be added to the group

ken at kenliudotcodotuk

Let's push this forward - the potential is great especially if we work on building niche products and offers that the bigger players don't have

Ken

Anonymous’s picture

+1

amrit_b’s picture

I am novice and I don't think its a good idea to write in this high-level developers thread, but still, if by any chance I am not fully wrong.. Here it goes:-

UC products with a lot of CCK fields including number_of_sells(hidden - computed field), discount percentage (just for showcase in the product display), actual_product_price(just for display), minimum sells (integer), time_to_live(uc_lto module), cost price(commission for the administrator users will pay this amount on site), and a COUPON_CODE(some arbitrary text).

SELLERS will create the products.

USERS will purchase, they will receive the coupon code via email. And also the same email will notify that the deal is not yet LIVE(it will go live only when number of minimum purchases is met).

On every purchase, the computed field will increment the number_of_sells.

When minimum number_of_sells is met in given time, they will receive mails that the deal is LIVE. Else the deal is CANCELED.

I guess a small module is required (which I can write) to send mails and do few other stuff.

When the deal goes LIVE, the administrator will keep the complete cash made when people bought the COUPONS. Seller won't get any money. They only gets the customers to sell the product in bulk.

PROBLEM: How can I refund the money when the deal is CANCELED?

If there is anything meaningful above, please let me know!

Thanks

quardz’s picture

/*UC products with a lot of CCK fields including number_of_sells(hidden - computed field), discount percentage (just for showcase in the product display), actual_product_price(just for display), minimum sells (integer), time_to_live(uc_lto module), cost price(commission for the administrator users will pay this amount on site), and a COUPON_CODE(some arbitrary text).*/
Yes i think it is good to use CCK fields to store above data/

/*On every purchase, the computed field will increment the number_of_sells.*/
We have Stock in UC which automatically decrease the count on every purchase

/*PROBLEM: How can I refund the money when the deal is CANCELED? */

For now, only manual refund or keep it as Store Credit with out refund.

amrit_b’s picture

okay... but am i anywhere close to groupon or this thread??

kenwen’s picture

I'm not sure if the coupon system is entirely needed in the GO scenario

firstly the discount doesn't apply to the product being sold, it applies to the product being sold on your deal site

for example. I have something I retail for £97 - it's not being sold at £97 discounted to £47, its being sold at £47 as a discount to the deal site?

This means there is no need for coupons

quardz’s picture

You are right. But some sellers accept only the printed coupon, so atleast we needs to think about to store the coupon code in a CCK.

Road Runner’s picture

You have Merchant content type and voucher content type. Then in Commerce module you have a product type - I'll call that a coupon. The coupon has a node reference back to its associated merchant.The voucher and coupon have corresponding node references pointing to one another. When someone buys the deal of day they are emailed a confirmation of purchase, an account is automatically crated for them if they don't already have one and then they are emailed a voucher - this is redeemed for the product and presented at the merchant.

I have this all working except for voucher email sort of looking at rules and flags and Views bulk operation but I haven't found a way (yet) to add a file to an email.

I also need a way to disallow an coupon purchase that has expired.

I am doing this in D7 ideas always appreciated. See most of this work at http://madmendeals.com go ahead and "buy" deal of day there is no credit card required just enter a few random characters in authorization field and the transaction will go as far as it can. You'll receive confirmation, new account but no voucher yet.

jacks0_0’s picture

Can you show me the way to display stock in the product page? thank you

forward-media’s picture

subscribe

dhallennem’s picture

Hi !

I'm working on a group buying project using Ubercart. It's a little bit different of the Groupon project because I don't want to use just coupons but have sellers who offer products with a good price if a certain number of buyer subscribe to the deal.
I start to use Ubercart marketplace to do this. I don't know if i'm right...
What module do you think I could use ?
Thanks

Matthieu

dhallennem’s picture

Other thing :
I want to allow the seller to create his product before creating his group sell.

I mean it seems to me that there is 2 solutions :
1- with Organic groups : the seller have to create a group and add to it his product
2- create another content type for the group sell with a node reference (but there is a problem with the lost of attributes and maybe other things...)

What do you think about ?

aquaphenix’s picture

Hello all,

I am currently working on putting together a Groupon like site for the local marketplace in the Republic of Panama, right now the development of the site can be seen @ http://local.oferta24panama.com.

I am developing the site using D6 because as many see the concern that many D6 modules have not yet been ported over to D7 or many are in alpha or beta release.

My client is not concern with a tipping point, so I am not worried about that part in my development, but could be something to incorporate for future clients. I am planning on using the following modules to make the site work:

  • Ubercart
  • CCK
  • Views
  • Views Slideshow
  • Date
  • FileField
  • CKEditor
  • elFinder File Manager
  • Workflow
  • Rules
  • Conditional Actions
  • Scheduler

I'll be using Ubercart, CCK, Date, FileField, Views Slideshow to create the product/deals. I want to use Views Slideshow because I want several images in the deals offers to slide.

I'll be using CKEditor and elFinder File Manager to make it easy to upload images and videos into the nodes.

The reason for using Workflow, Rules, Conditional Actions and Scheduler is because of the following:

Workflow will allow me to have deals unpublish, (created by the business owner in the status of review) once it is approved by a "deals manager/admin" than it goes into approved status (not publish), once it is 12pm at night than the deal will be publish utilizing Cron and Scheduler. Conditional Actions will be used to send out all emails to the business about purchases. Rules will play part in making sure everything works in the parameters set by the "web site owner".

I am still stuck though with the time remaining and how to have Rules or Scheduler change the status of the product node once it has expired or if this should be done manually for now.

The flow I am trying to get is as follow:

1. Business owner sends in the info about his/her deal (a node is created at this point with the status "Under Review"
2. Once the deal is approved by the site admin "deals manager" than the status changes to "Approved" and will be listed somewhere that will allow for Rules/Scheduler/Cron to publish the Approved deals @ 12pm and Conditional Actions to send out emails to users about new deals.
3. There is no tipping point, so anyone will be purchasing from get Go, but once the deal is over, I need to make the deal expired and the buy button dead (right now doing it manually).
4. The now expired deal will appear under the Previous Deals section (using Views to get this done)
5. Most deals will last about 2 or 3 days, so the deal for Monday on Tuesday will now appear on the right sidebar as "More Offers" (this is why I need to use Rules/Scheduler/Cron to change the status of the product node so it appear in another section after 24 hours of being in the front page.

Each deal of course once approved by the deals manager will need to be the front page of the site, need to see how to get this done automatically instead of manually.

Anyone willing to give me some input will be greatly appreciated. I have mid experience with programming, but more comfortable in theming with Drupal. Anyone wanting to share resources on this project, please contact me directly, I am willing to put my server for the development and experience into developing something together.

_gramur’s picture

Haven't tried it the time remaining personally but the rules module might be a step in the right direction with creating a triggered rule. Take a look at this: http://drupal.org/node/517674

_
Founder
Sivius.ca

HansR75’s picture

Hi All,

I'm looking for a few people... 2, maybe 3... To put together a website with Drupal and needed modules to get a groupbuy kinda site going. My idea differs a bit from the original groupbuy approach so for obvious reasons I'm not going to post full details here.

What I'm looking for is customized design and programming and would then reward the team in the future success of the website. My forte is selling and sourcing, marketing both online as well as offline so I'm sure we can get this baby going once we have the functionalities we need. Viral and affiliate marketing are my specialties and needless to say that groupbuying is just made for that.

It would be a platform with global potential over every deal which makes it unique and easy to grow. Once global we localize bit by bit to milk the cow we have grown.

I'm also looking to support the whole drupal community for making all this possible by sponsorships coming from profits made over this project. Basicly I would split 70/30 where the 30 is split into 20 to the team and 10 to supporting the drupal community hoping it will be used make this platform even better. Of which I'm pretty sure that this will happen. The above assumes I would work with 2 people, 10% each.. One good programmer and one good customizer would do the job I think. The 70 for me is obviously for my personal gain but actually goes into the company/project and will be heavily reinvested in sales, marketing and other reinvestments enabling growth. I'm not greedy, I just need a team on board and together we can make this work and make money fast. Easy? There is no such thing as easy money, but if we have a motivated team, spirit and willingness combined with a good idea this has great potential.

Time to market target: 1 month.
First profits target: Almost immediatelly as during the month of preparation marketing will be up and running. That will be my job and some others that will join the global sales, marketing and sourcing team which is already being formed as we speak.

Your programming work you can keep in your own ownership and moneytize it... Or share it with the community, as you wish. I would prefer sharing but it is entirely up to you. Except for one module that creates the unique selling point for our project. That one module makes us different and gives us the competitive advantage over all the other sites out there so we don't want that out there for grabs.

if anybody interested contact me and let me have your contact details. Preferably SKYPE as that works well for global communication in group meetings and stuff.

Looking forward to hear from a few of you.

Hans R.

k3n3dy’s picture

+1

amal850720’s picture

subscribing

sol1313’s picture

Hoping to have a groupon type site launched in less than a month. Will share details once the site is operational.

amal850720’s picture

Do keep us updated

carsonblack’s picture

It's not 100% exactly Groupon (we don't have a limit of purchases needed before the deal is active), but you can buy a deal and print it out and redeem it. And it's far from perfect.
It's at http://www.norcalmarketplace.com
There was a massive amount of work needed in overriding Ubercart's order display to get the UI right for users. Basically you have to approach as you are selling the user an invoice. Also, I had to build a module to handle the redemption of the deal (the business logs in and marks it as redeemed). We also did a view to output a printable list of unredeemed deals with checkboxes that the business running the deal could use to quickly mark a deal as redeemed and keep it near the cash register, then just do the online redemptions at the end of the day.

I am embarking this week and the following weeks on creating a modified version of all of this using D7 and Drupal Commerce. Depending on how I get it all put together I plan to contribute a module(s)/feature or a distribution. With Commerce it's possible that it won't require any kind of module, just setting up use case specific rules and views and other modules already in contrib (scheduler for example) which could be memorialized in a Feature instead of having to actually do it a custom module (although Features are pretty much custom modules). Oops, I take that back, probably would need to build the redemption module. I don't think there's really anything like that in contrib, maybe flag module?

Anyway, I'll try to keep you posted.

rahulan’s picture

Subscribing

yannisc’s picture

We're building a groupon-like distribution based on Drupal 7 and commerce.

We plan to give it away for free.

It will be soon at http://www.opendealsapp.com.

Project page is at: http://www.drupal.org/project/opendeals

eyenology’s picture

subscribe

MikeNolls’s picture

That looks pretty solid above, would be a great template to work off of.

And, I really love how Drupal performs in this type of "user sign-up & offer" website setting. I'm not sure though about the payment gateways you guys are using, can anyone setup a link to a more indepth guide or something.

quardz’s picture

I am developing another Deal site. http://efc2.gyanexpress.com/wd/

Wants to give it to community

yannisc’s picture

We just got live the Open Deals demo at www.opendealsapp.com/demo.

We work to have the distribution files available for download sometime next week.

amrit_b’s picture

Excellent work. Really useful stuff! :)

mogop’s picture

yannisc’s picture

We are ready! You can download the Open Deals distribution from here: http://drupal.org/project/opendeals

Remember, this is the first (alpha1) release.

mogop’s picture

I'll try it tonight

quardz’s picture

Thanks, You are my life saver. Just awesome.

cnario’s picture

I installed OpenDeals today; very solid stuff. Kudos to Yannis and his team. This system is complex, I'm still trying to understand it, but it has great potentials.

yannisc’s picture

cnario’s picture

You're welcome man.

yannisc’s picture

We updated Open Deals to alpha4 version which works as a proper Drupal distribution based on Features.

You can download it here: http://drupal.org/project/opendeals

Vitali’s picture

Thank you for the excellent work. I installed Open Deals, but my site is not showing demo_content. How I can solve this problem. Thanks in advance!

yannisc’s picture

make sure before starting installation, that PHP has 128M of memory. Try reinstalling.

Vitali’s picture

Thank you! PHP had and has 128M of memory. Solve the problem with reinstalling.

newnewuser’s picture

Can anyone advise if a site like jetsetter.com which is a hybrid between flash deal and hotel booking can be built with drupal without much customization? Does anyone build a script like this groupon clone that can be used to jump start the customization?

Tabestan’s picture

You'll obviously have to do some custom work here.

Try playing with opendeals and drupalrooms distributions, they provide similar features.

bojanz’s picture

There's nothing in Drupal that can be built "without much customization" ;)
You're given a box of (awesome) legos. Keep that in mind.

Nicolas_RTDS’s picture

If by any chance you're still interested in this topic, the company I work in, has released a beautiful Drupal Groupon Clone.
It's been several weeks from the launch, but we continuously work on improving our product. The updates are on the weekly basis, and the support is 100% responsive.
The demo can be viewed on http://www.themesdojo.com/drou...

kopes18’s picture

Subscribing