Groupon Goes After Costco and Sam’s Club With Groupon Basics, a Portal for Home Goods

Last year, Groupon's CEO Eric Lefkovsky said that his ambition was to make the e-commerce company's Goods business more like Costco, not Amazon.com. Yesterday, the company announced it's launching a new business called Groupon Basics — offering discounts on home goods to compete with warehouse-based bulk-buying clubs — that will bring it one step closer to that idea. As an expansion of the online e-commerce portal Groupon Goods, Groupon Basics is a discounted, bulk-shopping service for home goods. Starting with household, personal care and health products, the plan is to expand to canned and packaged groceries in the next few months.