Faisal Masud, the vice president of Groupon Goods, will be leaving the company later this month, the sources said. One of the sources said he has taken a top position at Staples.

Groupon Goods, which was started in 2011, is one of Groupon’s newer businesses and is its first push into more traditional e-commerce. It sells discounted goods from companies like Dell, and is separate from Groupon’s traditional local coupon business. Masud was hired away from eBay in 2012 to help build Goods, which Groupon announced in April had reached an annual run rate of $2 billion in global billings. Groupon as a whole had $5.38 billion in gross billings for 2012, the company reported in February.

“As we’ve discussed before, growth of Goods … has impacted our overall margins as it has grown materially over the last few quarters, reaching an impressive $2 billion annual billings run rate in Q4,” then-CEO Mason said in the company’s fourth quarter earnings call in February.

The company’s stock has been pounded since it went public in late 2011 — at one point it was trading in the 20s, but more recently has fallen into the mid single digits. Part of the issue for investors has been questions about the reliability of the company’s accounting — last March, for example, Groupon had to restate its earnings after a higher-than-expected number of customers demanded refunds.

But also driving the downward pressure on the stock price is investor skepticism about whether the company can become more than a simply a daily deals site. Many analysts think that model has limited potential, because users can easily tire of the daily email blasts, and for merchants, the deals don’t necessarily translate into a greater number of loyal customers.

Masud’s job has been to help the company become a much broader e-commerce company, a “searchable marketplace,” as Groupon executives referred to it on a recent earnings call. Our sources said Masud’s departure was prompted by tensions between the emerging e-commerce side of the company and Groupon’s local-coupon roots. Before joining Groupon, Masud was head of global shipping and fulfillment for eBay, and before that spent five years at Amazon.

Groupon told us it had no comment. We also reached out to Staples, and will update the story if we hear back from them.

Groupon has been in the spotlight most recently with the high-profile departure of CEO Andrew Mason. Cofounder Eric Lefkofsky and fellow board member Ted Leosis have been named interim co-CEOs while the company searches for his replacement. The company will report its first quarter earnings on Wednesday. The stock closed at $5.84 on Friday.

Update: On Tuesday Staples announced that Masud had joined the company as executive vice president for global e-ecommerce. The full press release from Staples can be found here.

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Both operators coincidentally launched location-based marketing services today, respectively called Verizon Selects and AT&T Alerts. Verizon’s program is just a pilot, targeting a portion of its customer base, but both operators stressed their programs are opt-in only and neither would sell nor distribute any personally identifiable information to outside companies.

That may assuage many customers who want their privacy protected. But these programs — particularly Verizon’s since it tracks the way consumers use their mobile phones — will give many customers the creeps. Last year a huge controversy broke out about over U.S. carriers’ use of Carrier IQ, a company that anonymously, but secretly, gathered phone usage information from handsets. Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and even Apple claimed to use the info only for diagnostic purposes, but the resulting backlash forced most carriers to excise the software from their handsets.

Verizon was the only major carrier whose hands were clean of the Carrier IQ scandal, but ironically the information Verizon Selects is using to target offers is the exact type of data that Carrier IQ collected. This time, however, Verizon and AT&T are asking permission, which may just be the critical difference in the eyes of the consumer.

The Yankee Group conducted a survey in the wake of the carrier IQ controversy, finding that a majority of U.S. mobile subscribers wouldn’t mind if their carriers logged information from their phones, but only if they were transparent about doing so and if that tracking provided some legitimate value such as being used to more quickly fix problems with their phones.

That seems to be the bet that AT&T and Verizon are taking now. Customers who inherently mistrust their operators may never sign up for these programs, but many might see value in them.

AT&T Alerts is available to all of its customers, and is designed to be both location and time sensitive. If you’re approaching a Gap, for example, AT&T ships you text message out of the blue with a link to a coupon for jeans. You can register for the service on the Alerts web page or opt in by texting “join” to the “ATTALERTS” short code, though it’s not available yet for the iPhone 5.

Verizon Selects is a lot more expansive, covering much more media than SMS – even direct snail mail — and unlike AT&T Alerts, it provides a direct link between the third-party advertiser and the customer. Here’s how Verizon explains it in its News Center blog:

Simply put, Verizon Selects will use location, web browsing and mobile application usage data, as well as other information including customer demographic and interest data, to create specific insights. Verizon Selects analyzes this information about customers to see whether they fit into certain audiences Verizon or third party marketers are trying to reach. Depending on the results, participating customers will receive marketing messages or offers that may be of more interest to them than what they see or receive today. These messages could be delivered in various ways such as email, text, postal mail or online or mobile advertising.

We are asking customers to opt-in to Verizon Selects because of the types of information being used and because the capabilities provided to third-party marketers gives them the ability to reach customers directly. It’s important to remember that Verizon DOES NOT share information that identifies customers personally outside of Verizon.

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AllThingsD and other media outlets reported Tuesday that “discussions about Mason’s tenure as CEO have increased as its stock has dropped precipitously. That has prompted its directors and management to seek to find a way to get the company on more stable footing as a business and, perhaps more importantly, with investors.”

“News flash: Our stock is down about 80 percent since we IPO’d a year ago,” Mason said. “It would be weird if the board wasn’t discussing whether I’m the right guy to do the job… the only thing unusual is that it’s showing up in the newspapers.”

But Mason claims “Groupon’s a special kind of company. When you’re creating a new category, there’s going to be bumps along the road and things that can’t be predicted.” The company is “unlock[ing] local commerce and plug[ging] it into the web,” Mason said. “I’ve seen Groupon crush the most seasoned professionals. What Groupon needs from the CEO role is consistent leadership.”

Groupon had two big surprises in the past year, Mason said. The first one was that “the performance of the international business has been in steady decline. That’s been a major impediment on the growth and an obfuscator in the story of Groupon.” He described it as “a tale of two businesses.”

The second surprise was the popularity of goods. “We’ll run a deal for a Garmin GPS device and sell 30,000 in eight hours. There’s never been an outlet for something like that,” Mason claimed — though many other companies, like Amazon (which owns Groupon competitor LivingSocial), run flash deals on goods. The company is “absolutely not” building out an Amazon-like service with fulfillment and shipping. “The way we think of goods is a way to strengthen that core, daily deals value proposition.”

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Zulily said it now has 10 million members who come every day to check out more than 35 sales events. Sales are announced each morning in an email and last around 72 hours. The company also just launched an iPad app, which is important because Zulily now gets 30 percent of its sales on mobile devices.

But aren’t daily deals doomed? Well, not if you believe Andreessen Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan, who said Zulily is positioned for even more growth ahead as a leader in “ecommerce 2.0.” He wrote in a blog post that the company plays in big markets and is very efficient but doesn’t go head-to-head with Amazon. Instead, it works with designers who don’t have national distribution and creates a long-tail catalog of products similar to Fab.

Zulily isn’t a traditional daily deal site, it’s more of a mix with a flash sales site like Gilt. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The company previously raised $53.6 million including $43 million last year at a reported $700 million valuation. Earlier on Thursday, Fortune reported that Zulily was now valued at $1 billion though that was based on a report that the company was raising $100 million.

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New York City-based Savored is structured quite differently than Groupon’s original product. Instead of getting merchants to offer a deep discount, with the proceeds split between Groupon and the business, Savored requires consumers to make a reservation at a nice restaurant at a specific time. When they secure a table, they get a discount usually between 30-40 percent off. Savored used to charge users a $10 fee to make the reservation but dropped that in May in favor of taking a small fee from the restaurants.

Since the service began three years ago, more than a thousand generally higher-end restaurants have signed on to use Savored’s reservation system, which now operates in ten cities. Groupon said it will continue to operate Savored and will not close it as it has done with other acquisitions.

Savored works as a yield management tool for restaurants and, as such, will work alongside Groupon Now, which also tries to help businesses sell unused inventory. The purchase is another indication of how Groupon is distancing itself from the daily deals market. Groupon, which helped popularize the daily deal, is experiencing slowing growth with its core product, with users spending less on the service.

The big problem with daily deals is that merchants were giving up steep discounts and sending half of the revenue back to Groupon on the premise that Groupon users who were introduced to a business were likely to come back as regulars, something that doesn’t happen that often. Also, merchants were often seduced by the ability to get some of their Groupon payment up front, kind of like a payday loan, though some ended up going out of business when they couldn’t honor all of their Groupons.

Savored is different in that it gives restaurants a better shot at driving traffic at needed times, without having to give up as much profit or risk being labeled as a desperate discounter. Savored’s Ben McKean co-founder and CEO said in a blog post that many restaurants increased their bottom line by 50 percent after joining Savored. I can’t say for certain but I’m not sure most Groupon restaurants can say the same.

Generally speaking, daily deals can work for some verticals, but they aren’t effective for many merchants. The company’s real future is in selling discount goods through Groupon Goods and being what CEO Andrew Mason describes as an “operating system for local commerce.” Both of those businesses are still unproven and there’s no guarantee they will succeed. And even if they do, will likely offer much leaner margins than daily deals.

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Chicago-based MyCabbage is launching Thursday with $950,000 in Series A funding from Lightbank, I2A and New World Ventures. MyCabbage will continue to operate a secondary market for deals, but now it’s free for users. The real focus is on creating a larger social wallet-like service that lets people organize, share and use their gift cards, coupons and daily deals with friends.

Users can have one place to store all their discounts and cash equivalents and see when they expire. And with MyCabbage’s social layer, it makes it easy for users to tap friends to help them redeem them using invitations and calendar reminders. MyCabbage will also allow users to say what brands they like, which can help the service serve up more discounts and offers from those brands and similar providers.

Kris Petersen, founder of MyCabbage, said the original plan was never to rely completely on daily deals. But after operating DealsGoRound, it became apparent that a secondary market for deals wasn’t going to cut it. It was hard competing for customers against the bigger deal providers like Groupon. And users were expecting a higher level of service than Dealgoround could provide. In particular, resolving disputes when it turned out that a sold deal was no longer valid proved very difficult.

But the overall drop-off in the use of daily deals was also a major factor prompting DealsGoRound’s relaunch. Petersen said sales on the secondary market has fallen by half in the last year as consumers become more selective about which deals they buy.

“I know people who used to buy four daily deals a month and now they buy one every other month. We found people are not buying deals and discounts for lifestyle anymore, they are buying deals that are for their regular life,” Petersen said.

MyCabbage’s relaunch follows CityPockets’ decision to close in May and Lifesta’s exit in January. CityPockets’ CEO Cheryl Yeoh, who launched a new deals and coupon clipping service called Reclip.it, told GigaOM in May that the number of daily deal providers had dropped from 800 to a few hundred as deal fatigue and competition took its toll. Indeed, the very term “daily deal” is now becoming almost toxic and early leaders like Groupon are now touting businesses that don’t revolve around that model anymore. Daily deals will still exist because they work in certain verticals. Groupon, Living Social and Google Offers won’t be going away overnight. But the larger daily deals phenomenon is fading as merchants and consumers move on to different ways to interact.

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It’s a significant return for Kinnevik, which invested just $2.9 million two years ago in German company MyCityDeal, shortly before it was purchased by Groupon.

But the exit could have been a lot higher had the Stockholm-based group been able to cash out around the time of Groupon’s IPO last November. Since then, amid controversy about its accounting procedures and heavy criticism of its sales tactics, the company’s shares have been on an almost constant slide.

That means by the time Kinnevik sold its 8.3 million shares, the stock price had fallen from 26.11 to just 9.74 — effectively drastically slashing what looked like a potential $190 million payday seven months ago by 60 percent. Getting out as early as they could suggests Kinnevik didn’t see the price going up any time soon.

The move is also significant because it severs another high-level connections between Groupon and MyCityDeal.

The German clone was set up by the notorious Samwer brothers in 2009 as a direct copycat of the Chicago-based company, and although it still acts as Groupon’s European arm, chief Marc Samwer left his post as Groupon’s international chief in April.

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“Groupon has emerged as the leading local e-commerce company in an industry with significant barriers to scale,”analyst Scott Devitt wrote in a note to clients. “Its advantage due to scale (largest merchant and customer base) and technology (8 acquisitions YTD) has enabled it to accelerate NA revenue growth while improving 
its margins.” Groupon shares gained more than 8 percent to reach $10.94 Monday morning.

Since its IPO in November,  Chicago-based Groupon, which debuted at $20 a share, has lost about half of its market value. There has been concern about its growth potential and financial reporting, as well as consumer fatigue with the daily-deal space in general. Additionally, reports and studies have suggested that Groupon’s daily deals model isn’t good for local merchants.

But data released Monday from New York-based daily deal aggregator Yipit suggested that merchants might actually be warming up to Groupon. According to Yipit, between the third quarter of 2011 and first quarter of 2012, the number of deals Groupon offered grew 12 percent. But the number of merchants it featured in those deals grew just 4 percent, suggested that Groupon is offering more deals with the same merchants, Yipit said.

A few other interesting findings from Yipit’s report:

- The number of first-time merchants has fallen to 59 percent in the first quarter of this year, from 84 percent in the third quarter of 2011. The number of repeat merchants is climbing, now representing more than 40 percent of Groupon’s total merchants.

- Repeat merchants represent a majority of Groupon’s local gross billings, climbing to 56 percent in 21 2012 from 33 percent in Q3 2011.

- Repeat merchants perform 21 percent better than new merchants.

While Yipit acknowledges that the reliance on repeat merchants might mean that Groupon has saturated the market, the company says the data is showing that repeat merchants still perform better.

Still, even if merchants are becoming more satisfied with Groupon deals, a report last month showed that the quality of the merchants themselves may be going down. A study from Giorgos Zervas, a postdoctoral fellow of computer science at Yale University, found that, in the aggregate, the quality of merchants that offer Groupon deals (as measured by Yelp ratings) is decreasing over time. He said that may be because as Groupon expands, it is working with more lower-rated merchants, or it could be that Yelp ratings are “naturally eroding” over time. Meanwhile, an earlier study by Zervas found that Yelp ratings for individual businesses decreased after a Groupon deal.

As we’ve reported before, the daily deals space, in general, is in transition. The number of pure play daily deals players has fallen considerably, but at the same time, more companies are starting to blend social and mobile technology with local deals and commerce. Earlier this month, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus said his research shows Groupon is transitioning with the industry – from being a daily deals provider to a broader e-commerce company. Groupon’s large customer and merchant base will help the company as it transforms, but it will be interesting to see whether it can maintain a leadership position among a broader set of rivals.

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In an announcement today, the company said it had raised $21 million in new funding from Jafco Ventures and existing investors, such as Spark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Lerer Ventures and Bob Pittman. The new funding will help the company expand its footprint into the U.K., Germany and other parts of Europe, as well as further enable its platform to support all kinds of e-commerce.

Since its launch in 2010, the company has mostly used its white-label software platform to help local and national publishers sell Groupon-like daily deal offers. But, as publishers shift to selling more products, in addition to local services, the company is preparing to meet the $240 billion a year e-commerce market in a variety of ways, said Group Commerce CEO and co-founder Jonty Kelt.

In 2011, he said, about 85 percent of their business supported local commerce, which mostly involved offers for services, and 15 percent supported national commerce, which was mostly product-based. In 2012, he said, he expects the split to move closer to 70/30 and continue to even out over time.

“Local commerce has been all the rage with the likes of Groupon and other companies in the local space… but that’s just one part of the market,” Kelt told me. “Our technology has always been designed to be flexible and accommodate the different flavors of e-commerce.”

While the company’s vision was always to enable multiple forms of e-commerce, the new funding will help develop its platform to support potentially everything from flash sales to subscription commerce to other kinds of commerce opportunities. One constant, Kelt added, has been the company’s belief that publishers and customers are best served by carefully curated commerce that matches online content.

In addition to the new funding, Group Commerce reported 30 percent growth in month-to-month revenues over the past 12 months. Kelt said the company had launched additional customers, but the lion’s share of revenue growth was driven by increased activity from core customers.

To date, the company has raised more than $40 million and employs 125 people in North America and Europe. Current clients include DailyCandy, The New York Times, Thrillist, CBS Local and Boston.com.

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