Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Apologizes To Japanese Customers For Osechi Trouble

Posted on January 17th, 2011 by Akky Akimoto

A half month after the ‘osechi’(traditional Japanese New Year food) trouble, Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason appeared on video on the Groupon Japan official blog to offer his apologies to Japanese Groupon users.

“We learn from this mistake, and don’t repeat the same mistake twice.”

I think most Japanese customers will be satisfied with this, and perhaps even like Groupon more than before the incident. Mason’s apology is similar to the apologies given by Japanese executives from time to time in the past, though Mr. Mason didn’t do a deep bow. Isn’t this style a bit strange for an American company?

(proofread by Adam Walls)

[Update: follow-up articles]

Asiajin » Groupon Slows Down After New Year Osechi Incident In Japan

Asiajin » Groupon Japan’s Osechigate Still Smoldering

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Akky Akimoto

Leader at Asiajin
@akky is one of the first pro-bloggers in Japan [J]. He also leads Asiajin, writes for The Japan Times, consults for some foreign companies interested in Japanese web market. (please inquire to akimoto on gmail.com).

Tags: Japan // 1 Comment »

  • http://twitter.com/gopinggers Pinggers

    Many businesses jump into offering deals on social buying sites without realizing the potential amount of customers it can get them.
    The truth is business owners should first of all make sure the deal is worth doing, since sometimes they end up losing money due to the huge amount of people that buy the deal. Besides, getting so many customers all at once, requires businesses to hire extra help, make sure they have enough stock of whatever they sell and basically be ready for handling a lot of people all at once without these disasters happening.

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