Here’s a potential startup idea with a solid business model.
Provide a Groupon clone for major Indian cities. The concept of Groupon is simple. Each day, you provide a new discount / deal to customers from local retailers. The catch is that the discount is only valid if a certain threshold of customers buy the deal. So, essentially, its group buying power, but becomes active only when the number of buyers reaches a certain tipping point. To illustrate with an example, say you negotiate a deal with a Bangalore restaurant – if you bring 25 customers, how much of a discount will the restaurant provide. Say, the restaurant agrees to provide a 20% discount if you guarantee 25 new customers. So, you announce the deal on your site and the deal becomes active only if at least 25 customers buy the deal. If less than 25 customers sign up for the deal, the deal isnt valid and all the restaurant gets is free publicity / marketing via your website.
Its a win-win for everyone involved – customers get a better deal, retailers get more customers and you take a cut from each unit sold.
Of course, you might need to tune the service as per the needs of the Indian market. For instance, instead of providing a web-app, you could provide operate it as a mobile only app (via sms & mobile payments) so that you can extend the reach beyond the Internet savvy demographic.
The crux of this idea lies in sales and building relationships with local retailers. Start with a city like Bangalore / Mumbai and then slowly extend to other cities depending on your experience.
what do you think ?
This is a great idea.
Actually i think this is the idea that can make twitter/facebook/orkut profitable if it is clubbed with social networking sites somehow.As social networking sites already have the mass of people so why create a new site to bring in new people.Just get the deals and market on these sites.
Similar thoughts to Rajat.
This is also very similar to ‘Bulk Discounts’ at Whole sale Marts like Costco / Sams Club except that it is done offline.
This should be experimented in an community level and then scaled up.
yes – similar to costco / sams club – but instead of products, you try and orient this towards services.
Groupon looks like woot. The only difference I see is that woot buys in bulk, so they have a limited quantity but cheaper rates. It would be something good to try.
@Rajat – As of today Facebook is officially profitable.
gaurav,
woot employs the ’scarcity model’ to sell products. groupon is like a ‘collective group buying power’
Two things are important.
1. “The crux of this idea lies in sales and building relationships with local retailers. ”
2. Most important is to find targeted customers. Ofcourse you can use all the new media, but the ultimate WIN of this business lies on “how you attract” pot customers to read about your services.
Extensive marketing is what reqd! Social medias can be used for this without much money involved provided you are creative
Remember-copying sth from american market won’t work here! Think a 100 times before you jump!!
There is already a company that’s doing that. Check out – GoVasool.com
puneeth,
govasool.com does do something similar. however, the difference in that it does for products — i’m talking of services – like say restaurant deal. or saloon deal or spa / massage service — anything that can be a local area service..
There’s a similar concept by a company in Indian real-estate market – http://www.meraflat.com
I’m actually working on something similar, but not limited to just providing coupons from restaurants. Think of it this way: [(Groupon - coupons) + (Woot - warehousing)] = Unlimited group based buying. More when the service is up
i am strarting the group purchasing just now ,and i am also looking for sb who are interested in such kind of business , like bulk-buying ,group buying ,you can email me for sharing more detail about that, i will setup business in china .
i am working on this project , may like to seee how we can associate
Hi David
I am working for a large internet company in India in VAS space. I am working on similar thing for India.
Would like to get connected with you for the same.
Can mail me at :
ratan.gmp@gmail.com . If you share your number , can call you for the same.
Is this up? If yes, can you tell me the url?
Thanks!
Anmol
September 18, 2009 at 5:00 am
I’m actually working on something similar, but not limited to just providing coupons from restaurants. Think of it this way: [(Groupon - coupons) + (Woot - warehousing)] = Unlimited group based buying. More when the service is up
Hey guys,
Appears quite a few people are jumping at the idea & putting their efforts. I am at a fairly advanced stage. How about coming together to execute it successfully? I suppose that is the key. Welcome to write to me: anilarrao@gmail.com
i have seen a similar concept which has started in Delhi and now in Mumbai as well, working well .. i believe its all a numbers game. The site which seems to work in India now a days is mydala.com .. In terms of reaching the target audience. The whole game is of selling the right thing at the right place at a certain point of time. I believe site like mydala is doing good marketing in terms of reaching out. When I become the Fan of the page few weeks on Facebook it was in hundreds and now its all a numbers game and there current status is more than 5k
Its numbers as well as the quality game as well…if quality is not good person who will try once will not come back again….they have to get the best price deals for a thing which is very much in demand….. i.e replicating Big Bazaar on the web….
Checkout – http://www.groupndeal.com, first of it’s kind in India and probably even in the world!