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| Chinese Groupon |
(Crain's) — After expanding into more than 40 countries, Groupon Inc. wants to move into China. Trouble is, Groupon already is there.
Ren Chunlei, a Chinese entrepreneur, bought the Internet domain name www.groupon.cn last year and now claims to have a footprint in 368 cities and 2,000 employees, according to a press release issued Wednesday. The site apes Groupon's look, from its logo to the color scheme and type font.
Mr. Chunlei's company, Mission Po Network, is for sale, according to its website.
Chicago-based Groupon declined to comment on the Chinese company’s footprint claims.
When it launched two years ago, Groupon fueled a worldwide explosion of daily-discount websites offering deals to e-mail subscribers, and China alone has more than 2,000 such sites, the People's Daily reports. For its part, Groupon operates in Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines and Taiwan.
The original Groupon has yet to launch in China, despite reports that it has joined with Tencent Inc., China's largest web portal, and owns the domain Gaopeng.com.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Groupon has opened a Beijing office and has begun to hire a sales staff in China. The People's Daily reports Groupon hopes to have a salesforce of 1,000 within three months.
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