Five Ways to Build Your Own Groupon

Group coupon buying has overrun the Internet. A $6 billion buyout offer of Groupon.com from Google should be enough evidence of that. Now, Groupon is getting hit from all sides. LivingSocial has turned up the heat, Yelp.com has introduced group coupon buying, Google is working on their own solution, Facebook won't be far behind and even local websites and newspapers are in on the rush.

Why aren't you?

You can be, by using one of these group buying options below.

Chompon.com provides full-scale group buying functionality and, according the them, a site can be set up in under three minutes. That is, if you have deals ready. The software can be white-labeled for full branding, social widgets are available to help spread your deals, daily emails can be set up, analytics are provided and there's even the option of setting up an iPhone app.

DealCurrent.com not only provides group buying software for your website but also offers marketing and sales help and training, affiliate tracking, merchant agreements and customer service, among other options. Deal Current also handles payment processing.

PoweredByTippr is a little more labor-intensive but it might be the most brandable solution out there. They claim to have, "...the industry's only patented white-label platform, providing the deepest branding options and widest array of configuration options such as three different deal types, incentive/sharing credit management, progressive account creation, Single Sign On (SSO), mobile and iPhone apps, Facebook connect, sales agent commission reporting, and advanced analytics." https://www.poweredbytippr.com

GroupDeals for WordPress is a group-buying widget for WordPress administrators. It can be implemented into your existing blog - a good option for those with an existing audience.

EnMasse for Joomla is an extension (just like a widget for WordPress) that just might put the Joomla CMS on the map. This extension was built from the ground up, specifically to handle group deals and even supports a multi-language pack.

Keep in mind that some of these solutions are more hands-on than others - particularly the widgets. So, expect a few bumps in the road. But the opportunities are there.