Groupon local sales slump is obscured by product expansion

Groupon’s core business of selling local deals slumped in the last quarter, but the decline has been masked by growth in new products, according to data collected by daily deal aggregator and researcher Yipit.

This information has been unearthed just as the company enters the second week of its investor roadshow in anticipation of an initial public offering, which is scheduled for this Friday, Nov. 4.

In Q3 of 2011, Groupon‘s local deals sales declined from $367 million to $359 million, a decrease of 3 percent overall, while total sales increased to $395 million, or 8 percent total growth, Yipit wrote in a blog post.

New products such as Groupon travel deals, discounted event tickets and consumer products have continued to fuel overall revenue growth at Groupon, but they are a small percentage of total sales, according the data.

[Image Credit: Tom Barnard/Flickr]