Groupon officially arrives in Australia after scrapping Stardeals brand

Groupon’s Stardeals brand will be discontinued after the company announced it has switched over to the groupon.com.au domain, ending an eight-month battle with bitter rival Scoopon.

Groupon filed a lawsuit against Scoopon last year, accusing the company of “domain squatting” after it registered the groupon.com.au domain name and trademark.

Groupon was forced to create an Australian site called Stardeals, which began operating in February, while it battled it out with Scoopon.

Last month, the two companies agreed to settle out of court for the ownership of the Groupon trademark and Australian URL.

It’s since been revealed the Stardeals brand will be discontinued, with all traffic redirected to groupon.com.au.

Patrick Schmidt, chief executive of Groupon Australia, says this is an exciting development for the company.

“The Groupon brand is known the world over as the pioneer of local eCommerce. It’s a trusted brand that many people know, so to have that strength now fully behind us is great,” he says.

“Naturally, we’re communicating the change in brand to all our customers and merchant partners, and reinforcing our commitment to deliver the very best deals and unmatched levels of customer and merchant support.”

The details of the deal are unknown. Earlier in the year, Groupon chief executive Andrew Mason said the company could be forced to buy Scoopon as a last resort.

“As Groupon became internationally known, opportunistic domain squatters around the world started to buy local Groupon domain names, thinking that we’d eventually be forced to buy them at an insane price,” Mason said.

“In fact, we tried to do just that, reluctantly offering Gabby and Hezi Leibovich about $286,000 for the Groupon.com.au domain and trademark – an offer they accepted.”

“But now they’ve changed their minds, and we believe that they’ll only sell us the domain and trademark if we’re willing to buy the entire Scoopon business from them.”

Scoopon could not be reached for comment.