It’s good to be a copycat in China as long as the market it’s dealing with is still hot, and if you own the .cn domain of the original site, it is definitely one of the keys to get more attention (or just get people confused…) and even succeed. We just heard that Groupon.cn got acquired the group buying giant Groupon.com, the deal is signed today.
Groupon.cn is launched in March 2010. It raised the first round $2.2millions in April 2010, and in December 2010, the second round (reported ~rmb 200-300 millions) was closed.
We’ve been writing about Groupon.com in China, the comments on Gaopeng.com were not that optimistic. So how about Gaopeng + Groupon.cn?
haha.. I thought the Chinese clones formed a boycott coalition? I guess no 义气 is worth hundreds of millions.
Interesting. I would’ve expected legal action for copyright infringement rather than this.
Totally unexpected. I’m assuming Groupon US is getting business advice from someone that has actually done business in China before.
I bet Groupon US could’ve saved a few million if they went this route a few months ago.
Not that surprise…Keep an eye on the response of other Chinese groupbuy sites…
Did Groupon acquired the domain name only or the whole company of groupon.cn?
I think groupon(dot)cn will really earn good money through the copy cat process. It is one kind of black mailing but no one can accuse the Chinese people and companies due to Chinese government rules.
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