Groupon's Chinese Site Begins Offering Online Deals

Groupon's China site at GaoPeng.com has now begun offering deals to online buyers, as part of the company's push to break into the country's group buying market.

GaoPeng.com currently offers discounted deals in Beijing and Shanghai, operating with the same business model the company uses in the U.S.

Groupon launched its GaoPeng site at the end of February, as a joint venture with Chinese Internet giant Tencent. Tencent runs the highly-popular instant messaging service QQ, which has nearly 650 million active accounts.

While Groupon has become the leader of the group buying trend in the U.S., the company is only just beginning to start its operations in China.

The company will have to compete in a market already filled with rivals.

There are already more than 3-thousand group buying sites in China of all different sizes and scope.