Pennyful anticipates to break-even in next 6 months, MediRupee to foray into 6 more cities

While online shopping has been gaining significant interest from consumers, affiliate or performance marketing is also on the rise. According to an industry estimate, it is expected to grow 500% over the next couple of years.

We recently wrote about cash back and coupon aggregators Cash Karo and Gopaisa. The former had driven sales of Rs. 25 crores for its partner retailers in the past six months whereas Gopaisa did transactions worth close to Rs.1 crore for Flipkart only in the month of March this year.

The other prominent cashback site, Pennyful, had paid one crore cashback to its users since its inception in November 2011. At present, it has over 250 merchants like Myntra, Jabong, Yebhi, Tradus, Paytm, Homeshop18 and Flipkart among others.

“We have grown about 150% in 2013 when compared to previous calendar year,” says Ravitej Yadalam, Founder and CEO of Pennyful. As far as daily transaction for its partners is concerned, Ravitej didn’t share any specific number, but said, “We process transactions in mid three digits (400-600).”

Besides cashback and coupons, it also runs referral program where one can make some cash by referring friends. “What sets Pennyful.in apart from most other players is that a user can request to withdraw their cashback at any time, that is, no minimum payout requirements,” points out Ravitej.

The company plans to break-even by the end of this year. “We are very frugal from day one and this helped us have a fine balance between earning and expenses. We are confident to break even by December and turn profitable in the first quarter of next fiscal,” reveals Ravitej.

After seeing success in the online space with Pennyful, Ravitej decided to take the online cashback model offline, and into a very niche segment -- healthcare. “This is when MediRupee.com (formerly known as MediCash.in) was formed,” says Ravitej.

Launched in 2013, MediRupee offers healthcare rewards program to help people save on their healthcare expenditure by providing them with a rebate on their healthcare expenses. Importantly, the service is helpful for patients who are not covered by any insurance policy. “We have close to 150 partners, including Fortis, Apollo among others.

“MediRupee has been doing well not only in the metros but in tier II and III cities too. Consumers as well as hospitals/health consultants have shown significant appetite in our concept. MediRupee grew about 100% in the last calendar year over previous one,” adds Ravitej.

Pennyful gets about 15% traffic from mobile while 30% of its user base hails from smaller towns. “We (MediRupee) are operational in six cities and looking to foray into six other cities by the end of the current fiscal,” says Ravitej.