Groupon, Inc.

David William Kunst

Feras Karablieh

Daniel M Roarty

Matthew Joseph Hanson

Eric Lefkofsky

Zachary Finley

Systems, apparatus, and methods for effectively allowing consumers to request promotions from a merchant are discussed herein. Some embodiments may provide for a networked device, apparatus, or server configured to: in response to determining that a merchant device is not associated with at least one available promotion, determine, via a processor, a promotion request threshold value indicating a required number of promotion requests for generating a promotion associated with the merchant device; receive a plurality of promotion requests from a plurality of consumer devices via the network; calculate, via the processor, a promotion request count associated with the plurality of promotion requests; and in response to determining that the promotion request count satisfies the promotion request threshold value, generate a promotion offer request indicating a request to generate the promotion.

Apparatus, method, and computer program product for generating promotion request data

Systems, apparatus, and methods for providing prepurchase promotions to consumers are discussed herein. A prepurchase promotion may refer to preliminary promotional mechanism that may be accepted but is not an actual (e.g., redeemable) promotion until subsequent to merchant approval of one or more promotion parameters. Some embodiments may provide for an apparatus including circuitry configured to: provide a prepurchase impression of a prepurchase promotion to a consumer device, wherein the prepurchase promotion is associated with one or more promotion parameters including a promotional value; receive bid data from the consumer device indicating a consumer-defined accepted value and consumer acceptance of the one or more promotion parameters at the consumer-defined accepted value; and generate a request to offer a promotion including the one or more promotion parameters at the consumer-defined accepted value for transmission to a merchant associated with the prepurchase promotion.

Systems, apparatus, and methods of providing prepurchase promotions

Systems, apparatus, and methods for effectively allowing consumers to request promotions from a merchant are discussed herein. Some embodiments may provide for a networked device, apparatus, or server configured to: receive promotion request data from a consumer device indicating that a consumer is interested in purchasing a promotion associated with a merchant; determine a promotion request threshold value; in response to receiving the promotion request, increment a promotion request count, wherein the promotion request count indicates a number of consumers that have provided the promotion request associated with the merchant; determine whether the promotion request count exceeds the promotion request threshold value; and in response to determining that the promotion request count exceeds the promotion request threshold value, generate a request to offer a promotion for transmission to the merchant. Some embodiments may additionally provide for techniques for determining parameters of a promotions or prepurchase promotion.

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Chicago, IL, United States of America

David William Kunst