Rebuffed in its efforts to buy the popular deal site Groupon, Google is apparently gearing up to start a competing service.
Mashable first broke the story that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is developing a new service called Google Offers to compete with the popular Groupon service — which itself already has several established competitors.
Google tried to buy Chicago-based Groupon for upwards of $6 billion last year, but the offer was rebuffed. Instead, Groupon has raised almost a billion dollars on its own. Meanwhile, Groupon’s biggest competitor, LivingSocial, recently announced that ecommerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has invested $175 million in the firm.
“Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program,” a Google spokesperson said in an email to InternetNews.com. “This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.”
Small Business Computing reports on Google’s plans and other developments in the competitive online coupon landscape.