No one minds a bargain. And this is why promotions inside the form of reductions, income or coupons, have always been an vital device for businesses to goal greater customers. Promotions could be executed with the reason of acquiring new clientele, or clean shares, or introduce a brand new product in the marketplace. With the appearance of on-line shopping in India and with growing variety of players in this space vying for greater clients, it's far herbal that the equal tools of promotions are being hired to growth site visitors at the ecommerce websites.
As a end result, couponing as a phenomenon which became rarely heard of some years returned, has gained massive recognition in tandem with the burgeoning ecommerce market in India.
Today every service provider, brand or vendor is leveraging the power of couponing to garner extra customers. If inside the West, couponing commenced from offline retail chains after which moved to the online area, in India the reverse is occurring. Online purchasing added couponing as a ordinary practice in the lives of Indians, which in advance had handiest been gainfully utilized by Domino’s. Now, couponing is moving into the offline area as properly with famous coupon aggregators shifting in to tap the huge majority of transactions taking place within the offline space. No wonder, coupon and deal aggregators are vying to gain a tremendous slice of each the net and offline marketplaces.
Acquired by Times Internet ultimate year, Mumbai based coupon aggregator, CouponDunia, is one such player which desires to be a one-stop vacation spot to keep money, be it within the online space or offline. That explains the numerous new initiatives being taken via it, starting from launching newspaper coupons that may be redeemed for fast discounts on grocery, domestic care and private care purchases at neighborhood supermarkets and venturing into the offline area in more moderen segments and in newer cities. Also it has added capabilities such as Geo-Targeting characteristic in its app which informs the person approximately the offers to be had around them relying on their place.
The employer based by means of Sameer Parwani in 2010, it's far now domestic for coupons from extra than 2,000 on-line brands, five,000 eating places, and has around 7 Mn email subscribers.
In the ultimate week of September, the couponing large rolled out India’s first “Great Online Food Festival”, which provided food fans distinctive reductions on famous on-line food shipping web sites and restaurants like Faasos, Foodpanda, Swiggy, Box8 etc.
Ankita
Ankita Tandon, COO of CouponDunia says, “To start with, we've got already forayed into the FMCG and retail segment in the offline area. We will now comply with it up with the healthcare and beauty segments. The concept is to reach more and more people by using venturing into greater segments offline as well.”
If users are rewarded with satisfactory deal both offline or on-line, on the other facet, the merchant companions gain from the elevated visibility as CouponDunia, act as an marketing platform for them. If a merchant has to introduce a new product or clean his stock, with a physical save, he can most effective target humans in the shop’s vicinity. But with the aid of leveraging structures like CouponDunia, his reach will increase exponentially.
The common sense at the back of launching vicinity primarily based couponing for stores was very clear, as consistent with Founder & CEO of CouponDunia, Sameer Parwani, they've realised that thru online shopping, they may be catering most effective to a small part of ability user base. “ninety eight% of the transactions nonetheless appear at offline stores and we preserve a vision to provide easy offers at each store, our users stroll via.”
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As couponing catches on with the Indian clients, CouponDunia is slowly expanding its presence within the offline space to faucet even more users. The firm might be expanding quickly into the health and beauty segments. Along with growing its breadth in FMCG and retail sectors in the subsequent one to 2 months, it will also awareness on expanding geographically within the offline area. Right now, CouponDunia is present in 7 towns and is trying to flow into many greater cities beginning with Hyderabad. Similarly, it has rolled out the FMCG offline phase in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, which it's going to expand to different towns as properly.
When requested about the increase objectives, Ankita stated that the company is developing robustly, and as such it has not set any objectives in keeping with se. “However all I can say that we are doing 20k transactions on a each day foundation and we would need to push that range better. And with our foray into the FMCG sector, we are waiting for the upward thrust will manifest quickly,” she delivered.
Competition
Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India’s report titled, ‘Retail 2020: Retrospect, Reinvent and Rewrite’, states, India’s gift retail market size stands at $six hundred Bn and is expected to touch $1 Tn via 2020. The retail spending in India’s top seven cities, presently, amounts to $57.Fifty six Bn, with an organised retail penetration at 19% in 2014. In tapping this marketplace, CouponDunia will face opposition from other couponing, cashback and deals web sites together with Cashkaro.Com, CouponRani, Groupon and Mydala .
Coupon aggregators Coupon Machine and Couponraja.In picked up investment of $140k and $500k respectively this year. Last October, Mumbai primarily based coupons and on line offers portal, PriceBurp.Com, raised over $100K in a investment spherical led by using Bright Ventures B.V.
But CouponDunia isn't always troubled by means of the opposition. Says Ankita, “I would really like to reiterate that no different participant is doing each online and offline couponing at the size we are and so we're quite plenty ahead and properly established in this space.”
The Post Acquisition Phase
CouponDunia became received with the aid of TimesInternet in 2014 for an undisclosed quantity. The firm retained its distinct logo identity and continues to function below the leadership of CEO Sameer Parwani. Times Internet incubated TimesDeal, in the meantime has merged into CouponDunia. Becoming a part of a huge media employer has given CouponDunia synergies in operations as well as economies of scale. Especially in the FMCG enterprise, in which it has routed its foray into the FMCG area with the Times newspapers. However, as a ways as structural adjustments are worried there were none, says Ankita. “We have complete operational freedom and CouponDunia retains its wonderful emblem identification underneath the Times Internet umbrella.”
One essential plus point of this acquisition has been the skyrocketing reputation of CouponDunia. A short observe Google developments will point out this fact. If earlier, young human beings, tech geeks and university children were the ones who were majorly resorting to couponing, now nearly anybody is doing it. Hence, logo reputation has been positively affected publish the acquisition.
On a monthly basis, the firm is witnessing about 5 Mn visits to the web site. Similarly, the CouponDunia app released last 12 months has visible downloads to the song of 5.1 Mn as well.
Challenges
“Couponing” as a “phenomenon” has grown lately in India. In his weblog submit on Inc42, Sameer had traced the evolution of couponing in India.With the exception of Domino’s, couponing in India did no longer become a “thing” till the emergence of on-line purchasing. And now, with the boom inside the ecommerce section, it is right here to live.
Sameer introduced, “ A aggregate of forces is now driving couponing into the offline international: customers having fallen in love with couponing, organized retail has grown. Offline enterprise owners have seen how coupons have helped on-line stores. Plus having a telephone for your pocket has allowed coupons to emerge as hyperlocal increasing the probability of redemptions and even making it profitable for small character enterprise to offer coupons.”
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Speaking of challenges, Ankita says they can be both from the client quit or the service provider end. “From the patron stop, there have been misconceptions that we battled approximately general schooling and cognizance in applying the coupons. Many a instances, customers fail to activate the coupon, or apply it to a wrong product, which ends in the coupon not operating. This gave upward push to the misconception that the coupons generally don’t paintings.”
She provides, “On the service provider side, many a times we've got seen that due to a high attrition rate, mainly at eating places, many new hires could no longer realize about the merchant’s partnership with CouponDunia, and as a result, won’t be able to assist customers redeem the coupons. We tackle this problem through imparting them on ground schooling. Also, our post income team maintains a music on this.”
A latest survey with the aid of Cuponation pointed out the truth that 95% of Indian customers spend vast quantity of time to find the quality deal and 92% of surveyed people mentioned that reductions are the biggest riding element of on-line buying. This virtually explains the truth that how quick has the Indian shopper taken to couponing. It’s no extra an advantage, but rather a requisite for shoppers these days. No marvel, CouponDunia and the likes at the moment are aggressively making roads into the offline space, in which still most people of transactions take location.
By resorting to combining offline and online offerings, CouponDunia appears properly on track to its scale quicker than its competitors. The flow will also permit it to improve customer engagement, brand’s presence and credibility, something which is vital as the opposition amongst gamers will increase.
