Groupon expands to restaurant checkouts Groupon has launched a low-priced checkout software system for restaurants that it hopes will help to retain customers and broaden its own business beyond coupons with a new subscription-based revenue stream. The move comes as daily deals sites scramble to diversify in the midst of ongoing competition from larger and more established ecommerce providers such as eBay and Amazon. Groupon's cloud-based Breadcrumb point-of-sale system will cost bars, cafés and restaurants between $99 and $399 per month. It runs on an Apple iPad tablet computer, rather than requiring a PC or more costly dedicated hardware. Mihir Shah, Groupon's vice-president of mobile and merchant products, said that the system was cheaper, both upfront and on an ongoing basis, than older POS systems from providers such as Micros and Aloha for functions such as adjusting menu items, managing staff and gathering sales reports. Groupon has also recruited a team of dedicated support staff, initially about a dozen people. As well as building loyalty and broadening its appeal to merchants who might sign up for its daily deals, Mr Shah said that Breadcrumb would be a money-spinner in itself. "We don't intend to make a loss on Breadcrumb," said Mr Shah. Investors, however, seem less confident in Groupon's prospects. Groupon stock has lost more than three-quarters of its value since the company floated on Nasdaq last November. It hit a new low in August after its second-quarter revenues came in below analysts" expectations despite its earnings beating forecasts. The company also lost several senior sales executives over the summer. In the month leading up to Wednesday's announcement, the stock recovered by almost 25 per cent after the launch of the payments service and news that it was taking steps to revive its European business. However, reports that eBay was stepping up efforts to offer a rival daily deals service knocked Groupon shares down 4.2 per cent in New York trading to $5.05 on Wednesday, reflecting wider investor concerns about the competitive landscape. The launch of the Breadcrumb checkout platform, which is based on technology Groupon acquired earlier this year, follows last month's introduction of a mobile payments system for merchants. Groupon Payments, launched across the US after a San Francisco trial, allows cashiers to swipe customers" credit cards through a reader attached to an iPhone, in a fashion similar to devices from Square and PayPal. "Our mission is to be the operating system for local commerce," said Mr Shah. To do that effectively we want to be the one-stop shop to help local merchants grow and run their business. Our core competence is the "grow," which is our core deal business. These services, such as Groupon Payments or Breadcrumb, are to really start building our suite of solutions that help our customers run their business. Mr Shah said that he believed Groupon's advantage over rivals such as Square in commerce systems was that it already had a large number of both consumers and merchants using its services. "In starting with the advertising business, which is our core business to date, we have both millions of customers on the consumer side that know the Groupon brand and use our mobile apps," he said. In addition, we have the businesses that we work with on the advertising side, which makes it much easier for us to distribute our POS and payments products.