Groupon is an online marketplace for local deals where attractions, tours, escape rooms and activities sit alongside dining, beauty and wellness offers, selling in 13 markets across North America, Europe and the United Arab Emirates. For operators, it brings price-led domestic consumers looking for something to do near home in the coming days, with most volume in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, and discounted offers as the selling format.

Connecting Groupon to Ventrata syncs your availability, prices and promotions and delivers bookings, changes and cancellations with tickets issued automatically.

To learn more about partnering with Groupon, visit groupon.com.

Primary website	groupon.com/local/things-to-do
Tags	Deals & Corporate Benefits
Destination markets	🇦🇹 Austria · 🇧🇪 Belgium · 🇨🇦 Canada · 🇫🇷 France · 🇩🇪 Germany · 🇮🇪 Ireland · 🇮🇹 Italy · 🇳🇱 Netherlands · 🇵🇱 Poland · 🇪🇸 Spain · 🇦🇪 UAE · 🇬🇧 UK · 🇺🇸 US
Source markets	🌎 Global
Specialties	Deal-led sales through special offers and discounts
Connection features	Availability Sync · Pricing Sync · Promotions Sync · Bookings Sync
Ventrata Booked GMV (last 12 months)	US$10M+
Ventrata Booked Suppliers (last 12 months)	25+
Developed by	Groupon (using Ventrata's OCTO API)

This reseller connection lets you sell your products through Groupon without managing availability, pricing and bookings by hand. Features of this connection include:

Availability Sync – Groupon checks your live availability in Ventrata.
Pricing Sync – Groupon gets your prices from your reseller pricing in Ventrata.
Promotions Sync – your Ventrata promotions apply on Groupon.
Bookings Sync – bookings, updates and cancellations from Groupon are created in Ventrata instantly, and customers get Ventrata tickets.

Creating the Groupon Connection

🔐 Required Role Permissions: See Connections, Modify Connections, See Connection Key

Before you begin:

You must have a commercial agreement with Groupon for them to sell your products. To inquire about partnering with them, contact them via groupon.com.
You must have Groupon created as a Reseller in Ventrata with their pricing (retail, wholesale/commission) defined correctly. Note that this API connection requires that the reseller is set to the "Bill to my account" settlement method.

In Ventrata Dashboard, go to Connections → Connections, click + New Connection, and select Groupon from the list of partners.
Select Groupon Reseller from the list of your resellers (must be created before creating a connection). The connection will inherit the reseller's configuration like pricing, allowed destinations, products, etc.
(Optional) You can also set the connection Name of your choosing, which may be helpful if you plan to have multiple Groupon connections and would like to differentiate between them more easily in the future.
Press the Create Octo Connection button.

📗 TIP

If needed, you can also allow or disallow products or destinations on the connection level, in addition to what you have configured on the reseller.

Mapping Products to Groupon

Securely share the OCTO API key shown on the connection you've created with your Groupon contact and ask them to map your products using Ventrata's OCTO API, with pricing (octo/pricing) enabled. Typically, it takes no longer than a few business days for the Groupon team to complete this.

Your Ventrata configuration is complete. You do not need to take any further steps.

📗 TIP

Groupon can access all products enabled on the connection, but you can also provide the Product and Option IDs from the connection page when contacting them to specify what to map.

Managing the Groupon Connection

Allow or disallow products: limit which destinations, products and options Groupon can access. See how to allow or disallow products.
Rename the connection to tell several Groupon connections apart.

Connection Features Detailed

This section is for anyone who wants to know exactly how the Groupon connection works: which Ventrata OCTO API calls Groupon makes, when it makes them, and what that means for you. Each call links to Ventrata's API documentation.

In short: Groupon pulls everything it needs from Ventrata. It reads your products, checks your availability and prices, and sends bookings and cancellations. Ventrata doesn't push changes to Groupon, so anything you change in Ventrata reaches Groupon the next time it checks.

Timings are typical for Groupon and rounded, and they can change if Groupon changes how it syncs.

Product Mapping	❌	You can't map products from Ventrata. Groupon maps them on its side, through your account manager or Groupon's portal. This works as follows: Get Products (`GET /products`) – when Groupon sets up your connection, and whenever it refreshes its listings, it reads every product enabled on the connection, with its options and units (ticket types such as Adult or Child). Get Product (`GET /products/{productId}`) – Groupon re-reads a single product to pick up changes to its options, units, booking cutoffs and settings. Mapping on Groupon's side – Groupon links each Ventrata option and unit to its own listing and ticket types. Your Groupon account manager does this for you, or you do it in Groupon's own portal if Groupon offers one. You only share the connection's API key. Typically with Groupon: Groupon reads your full product list about every 4 hours. It re-reads each product every few minutes. What this means for you: Groupon can only sell what it has mapped. When you add a product, option or unit in Ventrata, Groupon may see it on its next refresh, but it won't sell it until it's mapped. So tell your Groupon account manager whenever you add one.
Content Sync	✅ / ❌	Groupon can read your product content, such as descriptions and images, from Ventrata. This works as follows: `octo/content` capability – when Groupon adds it to the `Octo-Capabilities` header, Get Products (`GET /products`) and Get Product (`GET /products/{productId}`) also return your product content, such as descriptions, highlights, inclusions and images. Content changes in Ventrata reach Groupon on its next product refresh. Typically with Groupon: Groupon requests `octo/content`.
Availability Sync	✅	Groupon checks your live availability in Ventrata. Ventrata doesn't push availability changes to Groupon. This works as follows: Availability Check (`POST /availability`) – Groupon sends a product, an option and a date or date range. Ventrata answers with each bookable day or time slot, its status (`AVAILABLE`, `LIMITED`, `SOLD_OUT`, `CLOSED` or `FREESALE`), the remaining vacancies, the booking cutoff and an `availabilityId`, which Groupon needs to book that slot. Check at booking – when a customer books, Ventrata checks capacity again before it creates the booking, so Groupon can't overbook a slot that has just sold out, even if its stored availability is slightly out of date. Typically with Groupon: Availability Check: Groupon checks your products around the clock, usually starting about 6 months ahead and covering about 2 months per request, looks up to about a year ahead and re-checks the same product and dates about every hour. Checks are spread evenly around the clock, which points to a scheduled background sync rather than live customer searches. What this means for you: when you close a date, change capacity or sell out in Ventrata, Groupon shows it after its next check. For dates it checks regularly, that's within an hour. Dates further ahead are usually checked less often.
Pricing Sync	✅	Your prices come back with every availability check, once Groupon asks for them with the octo/pricing capability. This works as follows: `octo/pricing` capability – Groupon asks for prices by adding `octo/pricing` to the `Octo-Capabilities` header of its requests. Without it, Ventrata sends availability with no prices at all. Availability Check (`POST /availability`) – with pricing on, each day or time slot comes back with your price per unit (ticket type): the retail price the customer pays and the net price you invoice Groupon, both from the reseller's pricing in Ventrata (retail and wholesale/commission). Group prices – when Groupon also sends how many people of each unit type are booking, Ventrata prices that exact group. This matters for Booking Size fares and other group pricing. Booking Reservation (`POST /bookings`) and Booking Confirmation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/confirm`) – the booking comes back with its final retail and net price, so the booking in Ventrata always records the price it was sold at. Typically with Groupon: Groupon requests `octo/pricing` on all of its availability checks, so it sells at your Ventrata prices. Groupon doesn't send the number of people per unit type, so prices come back per person, and group pricing such as Booking Size fares may not show correctly on Groupon. ‼️ IMPORTANT – Ask for pricing to be enabled. When you ask Groupon to map your products, ask them to enable pricing (`octo/pricing`) as well, or switch it on yourself if you map in Groupon's portal. Otherwise it may be off, and Groupon won't receive your Ventrata prices. 📗 TIP – If prices on Groupon look wrong, check the Groupon reseller's pricing in Ventrata first: that's what Groupon reads.
Promotions Sync	✅ / ❌	Your Ventrata promotions can apply on Groupon, but Groupon doesn't usually request them. This works as follows: `octo/offers` capability – with it, Ventrata applies your eligible promotions to availability prices and to bookings, and Groupon can also send a promo code (`offerCode`). Promotions work together with pricing, so they need `octo/pricing` as well. This covers promotions you create in Ventrata (supplier-initiated promotions). Typically with Groupon: Groupon doesn't usually request `octo/offers`, so check with Groupon before relying on Ventrata promotions there.
Bookings Sync	✅	Bookings and cancellations made on Groupon are created in Ventrata instantly, and customers get Ventrata tickets. This works as follows: Hold: Booking Reservation (`POST /bookings`) – when a customer starts checkout on Groupon, Groupon sends the product, option, chosen slot (`availabilityId`) and one unit item per person. Ventrata checks capacity again and creates an `ON_HOLD` booking, which holds the places while the customer pays. If there's no longer room, Ventrata rejects the hold. Confirm: Booking Confirmation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/confirm`) – once payment goes through, Groupon confirms the hold, with its own booking reference and the customer's contact details. The booking becomes `CONFIRMED` in Ventrata, and Ventrata sends back your booking reference and the tickets (one per person) or a voucher (one per booking), depending on how your product is set up, each with a QR code and a PDF link. Groupon gives these to the customer, who shows them at your entrance like any Ventrata ticket. Expire: if the customer doesn't finish paying, Groupon never confirms, and the hold expires on its own and frees the places. Cancel: Booking Cancellation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/cancel`) – when a customer cancels on Groupon, Groupon cancels the booking in Ventrata. Ventrata accepts this only if the booking can still be cancelled and the option's cancellation cutoff hasn't passed. Otherwise it rejects the request, and Groupon has to contact you. Change: Groupon doesn't use Booking Update (`PATCH /bookings/{uuid}`), so a change most likely reaches Ventrata as a cancellation plus a new booking. Typically with Groupon: Groupon holds places for about 15 minutes while the customer pays (`expirationMinutes`). A typical Groupon booking is for about 2 people. It's normal to see more holds than confirmed bookings: holds from customers who don't finish paying simply expire. ‼️ IMPORTANT – Bookings sync one way, from Groupon to Ventrata. If you cancel, change or rebook a booking from Groupon in Ventrata, for example in the Dashboard, Groupon isn't notified. Contact Groupon so the booking is cancelled or changed on their side too, or ask the customer to cancel through Groupon.
Pickups/Dropoff Sync	❌	Groupon doesn't send pickup or drop-off details with its bookings. If your products include pickups, check with Groupon how it collects pickup details, or arrange them with the customer.
Custom Questions Sync	❌	Groupon doesn't send answers to your booking questions. If you rely on booking questions, for example names or dietary needs, check with Groupon how it collects that information.
Extras Sync	❌	Extras and add-ons can't be booked through Groupon. Customers can only book your main products and options on Groupon. Sell extras separately, for example on arrival.
Redemption Sync	❌	Redemptions aren't reported to Groupon. Ventrata doesn't notify Groupon when a ticket is scanned or redeemed. Groupon only sees a redemption if it reads the booking back from Ventrata.
Pass Walkup Scanning Sync	❌	Groupon pass holders can't be scanned at your entrance without a booking. Customers from Groupon need a booking made through Groupon before they visit.
Gift Card Sync	❌	Ventrata gift cards can't be sold or redeemed through Groupon. Gift cards bought in Ventrata can't be used on Groupon, and Groupon can't sell Ventrata gift cards.

✅ supported · ✅ / ❌ limited · ❌ not supported

Good to know: limits and details of the Groupon connection

Delays: availability and prices reach Groupon only when it checks, so there's always a short delay after you change something in Ventrata.
Cancellation cutoff: Groupon can cancel over the API only before your option's cancellation cutoff. Later cancellations have to be agreed with you.
What Groupon can see: only the destinations, products and options allowed on the reseller and the connection, and enabled for sale on the Direct API source. See how to allow or disallow products.
Tickets: Groupon issues the Ventrata tickets or voucher it gets on confirmation, so your usual scanning and redemption work as normal.
Test bookings: Groupon can send test bookings while it sets up the connection. Test bookings don't use your availability and aren't invoiced.

FAQs

No products are displayed on the connection page.

Verify which destinations, products, and options are allowed on your reseller and connection. Next, confirm that your products and options are enabled for sale on the Direct API source. If the issue persists, contact our Technical Support.

My Ventrata products use Booking Size fares, and pricing isn't working correctly on Groupon.

After every fare change, update the product mapping to ensure the partner tier counts are synced with Ventrata. Ensure the fare is enabled for sale over Direct API.

Useful Resources

Groupon merchant sign-up (things to do)

📚 More about Ventrata connections

Partner Information

Groupon, Inc.

35 W Wacker Dr FL 25

Chicago, IL 60601, United States

groupon.com/local/things-to-do

Ventrata Partner ID: 91d97d6b-eb15-467f-ab58-730b4d47f6a7

Groupon: Reseller Connection