The online voucher site Groupon has recently gone through some troubling issues regarding their affiliate program. According to reports and rumors, they fell behind on paying earned commissions to their affiliates for quite some time. While there is no set amount released, it is said to be well into the tens of thousands of dollars.
They have only recently made these payments, and then only after being served with a suspension notice by the Zanox Group. Many people feared that Groupon was looking to move to a new affiliate platform and not going to pay the affiliates from the previous platform.
The affiliates impacted operated through Zanox, which is a European affiliate program. Some people may have also been impacted if they worked through Affiliate Window or Optimise (operating as OMG at the time).
As of Monday, August 3rd Groupon’s merchant profile on Affiliate Window had been removed due to this situation, but it was only down for a short time. Impacted affiliate marketers have confirmed that they have now been paid the money they were owed.
Not surprisingly, Groupon is not releasing any details regarding the situation. From everything I am able to find, however, the company is back current with all affiliates and affiliate platforms that they were working with. Having past due payments, however, can negatively affect a company quite significantly. The top affiliates in the world are often hesitant to work with a company with a questionable reputation for payments.
The Groupon company as a whole seems to be doing quite well with corporate revenue in the first quarter of 2015 reaching $750.5 Million, which is a growth of 2.9% from the previous year. We’ll keep an eye on the situation and hope for the best going forward.
