Groupon: About 2,800 Cut or Furloughed, No PPP

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: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Article: How 41 Companies Handled Pandemic Layoffs

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.

What the pandemic did to the business

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.

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. Revenue for 2020 was $1.4 billion, down 36 percent.

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.

Relief: no PPP loan, deferred payroll taxes and a loss carryback

SBA's PPP loan data list no loan to Groupon itself. 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.

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.

Credit line, covenant relief and a reverse split

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. Groupon ended 2020 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.

Layoffs

On April 13, 2020 Groupon told the SEC it expected to "terminate or furlough approximately 2,800 employees"; Layoffs.fyi put the share at 44 percent. The restructuring plan came to about 1,600 positions, plus the exit of New Zealand and Japan, and Groupon had 4,159 employees at the end of 2020, against 6,345 a year earlier. A second restructuring plan, approved in August 2022, came to about 1,150 positions. How Groupon handled layoffs →

Where the Company Is Now

Groupon's annual report for 2025, filed March 10, 2026, shows revenue of $498.4 million, against $492.6 million in 2024 and $514.9 million in 2023. Gross billings, the value of customer purchases, were $1.67 billion, against $1.56 billion in 2024, and trailing-twelve-month active customers numbered 16.2 million, against 15.4 million. Groupon had operating income of $23.6 million in 2025 and a net loss of $83.5 million. It had 1,734 employees at the end of 2025, 421 of them in North America, against 2,079 and 456 a year earlier. 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.

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