Groupon Profile: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

Category: local commerce
Pandemic layoffs: about 2,800 employees to be terminated or furloughed (Groupon Form 8-K, April 13, 2020); Layoffs.fyi put it at 44% of staff
Last updated: 2026-09-25

Pandemic-role map

Reader shorthand: a marketplace for local-business discounts whose merchants closed in March 2020.
What Groupon did for customers: sold vouchers for restaurants, salons, spas, travel and experiences, and sold marketing reach to the merchants behind them.
What broke in the pandemic: merchants could not operate and buyers could not redeem; Groupon reported a "material deterioration" in its business.
Relief role: not a lender or relief processor; its merchant blog sent merchants to Fundera for PPP loans through a partner link.
Own relief: SBA's PPP loan data list no loan to Groupon, Inc.; it deferred payroll taxes and carried back federal net operating losses under the CARES Act.

Founders, Executives, and Investors

Groupon is a public company that reports to the SEC. Its chief financial officer in mid-2020 was Melissa Thomas, and Aaron Cooper was interim CEO when it reported its 2020 results. Its chief people officer in January 2023 was Kristen Barbor. Dusan Senkypl, a director since June 2022 and a co-founder of PFC, a Groupon shareholder and private-equity group that invests in e-commerce companies, became interim CEO in March 2023 and CEO in May 2024. Jiri Ponrt, also from PFC, became CFO in April 2023.

Business Before the Pandemic

Groupon ran a marketplace for discounts from local businesses. Its revenue depended on merchants willing to sell discounted services and on buyers able to show up and redeem them.

During the pandemic

Groupon sold vouchers for things people could no longer do. In March 2020 its Local units sold fell 49 percent in North America from a year earlier. On April 13 it told the SEC it expected to "terminate or furlough approximately 2,800 employees" out of a staff it later put at nearly 6,300. Layoffs.fyi put the share at 44 percent, across all departments in Chicago, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, and said a partial list of more than 160 of those employees was about one-quarter engineers.

Its first-quarter results said North America gross profit fell 31 percent to $143.8 million, "primarily due to the negative impact of COVID-19 on demand and refund levels in March and lower Goods performance throughout the quarter." North American travel gross profit fell 74 percent to $4.0 million, and global units sold fell 20 percent to 29.8 million. First-quarter selling, general and administrative expense did not yet reflect "any of the payroll savings from layoffs or furloughs since those actions were initiated in April."

How the voucher money moved

A customer pays Groupon up front; the merchant is paid later. Historically Groupon paid most North American merchants on fixed terms, generally every two weeks. Under "redemption payment terms" the merchant is paid only when the voucher is used, and "if the customer does not redeem a voucher with such merchant payment terms, we retain all of the gross billings for that voucher, rather than retaining only our net commission." Groupon "accelerated this transition in 2020 to improve liquidity" and largely completed it in the third quarter. On March 18, 2020 it extended vouchers expiring in the next few months by up to a year, a step it said "will help minimize refunds." Deals with fixed expiration dates were excluded.

Together, the two changes kept vouchers that could not yet be used alive, with the merchant's share unpaid until redemption. Over 2020, accrued merchant and supplier payables fell from $540.9 million to $411.0 million. Customer credits, which Groupon says it issues "primarily ... as consideration for refunds," rose from $13.8 million to $61.0 million. Its annual report credited part of a rise in North American service margin to "higher variable consideration from unredeemed vouchers due to our shift towards payment on redemption terms."

What Groupon offered merchants

Groupon's #HelpSaveLocal initiative encouraged customers "to purchase vouchers to support local businesses." A May 2020 merchant post said Groupon was "investing millions of dollars into marketing and ad spend to highlight local businesses." Its marketing expense for 2020 was $154.5 million, down from $339.4 million in 2019. For relief money, it pointed merchants to Fundera: "Groupon has partnered with Fundera," an April 2 post said, linking to a Fundera PPP page tagged "aid=groupon." Neither that post nor a May 26 post on a joint Groupon and Fundera webinar says whether Fundera paid Groupon for referrals. SBA's PPP loan data list no loan to Groupon itself.

The 2020 layoffs

The board approved the restructuring on April 6, 2020. The first phase was announced at about 1,400 positions and later restated at about 1,200; the whole plan came to about 1,600 positions, plus the exit of New Zealand and Japan. Furloughs took in "a significant portion of its sales teams." Illinois's WARN list shows 299 permanent layoffs at the Chicago headquarters, cause "Cost Reductions COVID-19," starting June 7, 2020; California's shows 77 in Santa Clara. Groupon had 6,345 employees at the end of 2019, 2,358 of them in North America. It had 4,159 a year later, 3,675 at the end of 2021 and 2,904 at the end of 2022. Its North American sales staff went from 933 to 550 over 2020.

Groupon said it expected layoffs and furloughs to save about $100 million in 2020 and the full plan about $225 million a year; its 2020 results put that year's fixed-cost reduction at about $140 million. The plan's reported total cost changed between annual reports: $106.7 million in the report for 2021, $109.4 million in the report for 2022 and $104.7 million in the report for 2024.

Other relief and financing

Groupon deferred payroll taxes under the CARES Act; at the end of 2020 it owed $5.8 million of them, half due by the end of 2021 and half by the end of 2022. Its 2020 tax rate also reflected the act's carryback of federal net operating losses. It had drawn $150 million on its revolving credit line by March 31, borrowed $50 million more in April and had $200 million outstanding at year end. In July 2020 it amended its credit agreement to get covenant relief through the first quarter of 2021. The board adopted a rights plan triggered when a holder reached 10 percent of the stock. Shareholders approved a reverse split, which the board set at 1 for 20; Groupon had proposed it "to help mitigate" the risk of a Nasdaq delisting. Revenue for 2020 was $1.4 billion, down 36 percent, and Groupon ended the year with $851 million in cash.

Executive pay in 2020

Aaron Cooper became interim chief executive on March 25, 2020, with a $600,000 salary, a $600,000 cash bonus and 4,000,000 restricted share units before the split. The company said the pandemic made it hard to set performance goals "until mid-year." Once set, the 2020 performance share units were earned at 143.2 percent of target on adjusted EBITDA of $49.7 million, against a maximum goal of $70 million. The cash award's target was a $420 million cash balance; Groupon ended 2020 with $651 million, not counting $200 million of borrowings, and the award paid 100 percent of target, its cap.

Business After the First Shock

The restructuring did not end with the pandemic. On August 5, 2022 its board approved a first phase of about 500 positions globally, most of them by the end of 2022; TechCrunch put that at nearly 15% of the workforce. On January 25, 2023 its board approved a second phase of about 500 positions globally, most of them by mid-2023; TechCrunch put that at almost 20% of a staff reported at about 2,500 the month before; Groupon's annual report counted 2,904 employees at the end of 2022. Groupon estimated the payroll cuts would save about $70 million a year, with another $30 million from reduced technology, software and professional-services spending. Its 2024 annual report puts the 2022 restructuring plan at about 1,150 positions in all, substantially completed by the end of 2024.

Where the Company Is Now

The latest record in our sources is Groupon's annual report for 2024, filed March 11, 2025. Revenue was $492.6 million in 2024, down from $514.9 million in 2023 and $599.1 million in 2022, and the company had 2,079 employees at the end of 2024, 456 of them in North America. Earlier, in January 2023, TechCrunch reported that 22.1 million people bought at least one Groupon offer in the first quarter of 2022, citing Statista, and that the stock had fallen more than 72% in the year to January 2023.