Could D7 be used for a coupon site?

I just got this request - he has specifically mentioned Drupal, but could D7 be used for something like this?  Anyone have any ideas on this - or even want to jointly bid, please let me know.

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Seems to me, D7 would be quite an overkill ..... when comparing to the referenced site, at least.

Looks too much hassle to me to mod D7 for this. Unless there is large amount of recompense. Having said that you can get people on various freelancer sites that will do stuff for next to nothing. Be cautious though.

You think he is right about Drupal being the appropriate system for this?   Neither of the sites he mentions - www.groupon.com or www.socialbuy.com seem to be that "community" oriented - mostly just vehicles to deliver the coupons.   It occurred to me that the coupons could be just sent out manually by the mass mailer - I don't think there is any logic about who gets what coupon (though there should be).  I'm considering if a small bid using a stripped down version of Dolphin would be appropriate - let me know if anyone has any other thoughts.

D7 has a lot of features that would be of no use for a site like that.  At the same time, D7 doesn't have anything that would come remotely close to providing the functionality of site like groupon.com.  At first glance, groupon.com looks like a pretty simple site, but it is far from it.  There's a ton of stuff going on in the background..... some of it's a little nasty.  I could be wrong, but I don't think there is ANY off the shelf platform that would give someone a jump start in building a site like this.  Looks like a ton of custom coding to me with a hefty price tag.

Yeah I think you are right - I wrote him to ask and he got back with me and said there would not be a social network component, that it would be more of a eCommerce thing.    While I know the eCommerce scripts have coupons, I don't think they really do this either -  I am going to poke around a bit more, but will likely pass.

RE:

My impression is that groupon, when reduced to the fundamental thing that it does, is an email marketing platform.  People sign up for a 'deal" then invite friends of theirs to the 'deal', who in turn invite their friends to the 'deal'.... until the email pyramid gets big enough where enpough people want the deal, and the business then makes good on the 'deal'.  If not enough people sign up for the 'deal'.... the deal is off.  I assume through all of this, the business gets a bunch of qualified leads to send spam email to, for all eternity. 

If the person gave you a very specific list of specifications, that he wants, you might consider this.... as long as those specs were reasonable.  If he just want you to 'build him a site like groupon.com', he probably has a lot of unrealistic expectations that would be very costly and time consuming to deliver. 

You should probably ask him is he really wants a site like groupon, and to be more specific about his individual needs.  What he actually needs... may be a lot different that what he thinks he wants.

http://www.couponscript.com/

This reminds me of the days when I would attempt to use Dolphin for every kind of web site, even a normal blog. It actually worked out pretty well, and it made a great business web site, too.

Surely D7 could be used for a coupons based site. We just released our 'Deals and Coupons' mod i.e.

http://www.boonex.com/unity/extensions/entry/Deals_and_Coupons_Zone

This will not make the site a full fledged coupons site but ofcourse it could be a start and then other necessary site customizations can be done.