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
Agree with Jojo.
We in India love deals and we make no qualms about it.Which is why companies like Big bazaar, Brand factory are raking in big monies.
But in the service space it needs far more customisation than mere copying groupon which has enough clones in India.
You need a model that works on insights from both the customer angle as well as the merchants. Without diluting a brands equity by being seen as a ‘discount place.
John
principally i agree with you John on this but I am just not clear with your response in case of fine tuning this space for india ..what do you mean here ..also I understand that this market has enough space for multiple players or do you think its going to be one player game …
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.
well we are on to it… why dont u give me a call at 9809434973 and lets discuss on what each as to offer.
Let’s get in touch over email
- Saurabh
Can u provide me with some more input on this.
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!
Well another website on a similar track of working is “www.snapdeal.com” .. the opening page of this website and http://www.mydala.com are similar !
Its a gr8 idea ,but I need more clarity on one aspect
if I am a person who is visiting ur site and I am interested in a deal ,then will I have to immediately pay the money when I give my consent for buying or will I have to pay once the minimum no. of people is obtained for the deal . in the first case if I have to pay money at the time of giving my consent then if the deal does not materializes then I will get my money back in not less than 3 weeks ,dont you think this would act as an hinderance .
BuyThePrice.com and WaNaMo.com.
BTP focuses on products too, but WaNaMo is mostly dedicated to services.
Not sure if you guys checked out. I did find Koovs.com also going pretty good.. Lets c how things shape up for mydala and koovs. Interesting space though.
Juts got an sms for an another one : http://www.taggle.com
I am also starting a project within 2 months which will essentially focus on healthcare.
I would like to share with you people what I think about group concept-
1.In India,only 7% people go online.So there has to be a strong offline component.
2.In an inflationary world,group is a social necessity,not just a mere choice.Right man with right ideas will surely succeed.
3.Group has multiple good uses apart from just group buying.
I totally agree with point #1. Web presence has to be complemented with something else in India. In the US, 74% of the households access the internet. Plus, they have a long tradition of buying on the net. The winning solution in India would most probably be something else.
Btw, how are group buying sites doing in India? SnapDeal – and some others – do not tell how many coupons they’ve sold. The few that do don’t seem to be selling as much as GroupOn.
So, I am wondering whether something basic is being missed here. Probably Indians aren’t as keen on discounts as one would believe.
There is this site called http://www.snatchdeals.com that aggregates all such deals in one place. Just check it out..
While so many people are looking at Group Bargains, http://www.wooqer.com is taking the opposite approach and making deals a one on one affair. Also it is taking deals to another level by making available deals on almost everything from fruits and vegetables to laptops. Users can not only find deals , they can even wish for deals and Brands have an option to grant them based on multiple criteris.
To add on this due to several group buying sites launched in past few months and number grows to 11 which creates confusion for the normal customer for finding one deal they have to roam several group buying websites simultaneously.
To improve this http://30sunday.com is launching on 1st Sep 2010 which will aggregate deals from all 11 group buying websites of India having a reach of 22 cities and strength of more than 75 deals at a single time.
It would be India’s first exclusive group buying tracker portal