General Mills Offers Groupon Deals

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--General Mills Inc. has launched an offer with Groupon, the first large consumer products company to test the waters with the popular daily-deal Web site, and early results are promising.
 

The Groupon deal offered in Minneapolis and San Francisco on Thursday, April 21, includes 12 General Mills products, including Fiber One bars, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Kix cereals, Fruit Roll-Ups snacks and other items, for $20, a discount of more than 50 percent of the value of the package. The deal also includes a $15 coupon book for General Mills products, all which will be delivered to buyers' homes. By late Thursday morning, the offer was sold out in Minneapolis and on its way to doing so in San Francisco.

"The very early results are quite positive," Karl Schmidt, General Mills' director of promotion marketing, said in an interview. The company had 5,000 total packages for sale.
 

General Mills says its the first time a major consumer packaged goods company has partnered on an offer with Groupon, which typically offers steep daily-discounts for restaurants, retailers, classes and other activities.
 

General Mills declined to disclose the economics of the deal, which the company sees mainly as a sampling program, where customers can try a dozen of its products.

"Our goal is to get trial and penetration of our products, and get repeat purchases off that trail," Schmidt said.
 

While the deal shipped the products directly to consumers, Schmidt said General Mills will look to partner with retailers if it does future Groupon offers.

Groupon, which the Wall Street Journal has reported is planning an initial public offering later this year valuing it at up to $20 billion, has faced some criticism from companies that had offered deals through the service, saying that the deal didn't pay off.
 

General Mills said that it will evaluate the performance of the Groupon deal before deciding to pursue future offers.

General Mills shares were down 0.5 percent in recent trading at $37.81.