Indians love to bargain, and coupon company GrabOn shows them the best deals
GrabOn, an online coupons and deals venture, is going through an innovation and technology overhaul. It has recently launched a desktop and mobile notification system called Buzz Me. This new user notification pops up on the user's desktop to alert them of the latest coupons and deals.
Ashok Reddy, Founder and CEO, GrabOn, says, “Within a month’s time this new platform has had more than one lakh users getting the most exclusive coupons from GrabOn straight to their work stations and mobile phones. Genuine real-time coupons and technology innovation are the two platforms that GrabOn has introduced to this segment”.
GrabOn claims to be the first platform to innovate in this segment to get the end purchaser at the best possible price in the market through the easiest and fastest means of technology. It works on a cost-per-sale model and makes money based on the end sale.
Ashok adds that GrabOn focuses more on getting the deals to the users through means that are touted to be the best in the industry. He also makes sure that his merchant partners change out the deals frequently so that users don’t see the same deals every day.
GrabOn works directly on a strategic business model with all the biggest online companies in the country. It claims to have over 2,000 clients and has covered all the big companies in the market. Some of them are Uber, Paytm, Freecharge, Snapdeal, Flipkart, Jabong, Swiggy and Mobikwik.
Growth figure
Backed by Landmark IT solutions, GrabOn secured USD 250, 000 funding last year. The amount was invested in building team, infrastructure, technology expansion and advertising for customer acquisition. The company claims to have grown significantly in terms of numbers, visitors and revenues in the past one-and-a-half years.
“We record around four million unique visitors a month on our platform. Around 5.5 million coupons are redeemed monthly and we have around 1.4 crore page views every month. We expect to record an approximate of Rs 12 crore by end of June 2016 and start making Rs 1.5 crore a month from December 2015,” says Ashok.
He adds that he is in the process of raising Series-A funding of USD 15 million for the offline expansion and technology roadmap. He is expecting the funds in couple of months.
Competition landscape
According to the annual Online Shopping Growth Trends Report by Google and Forrester Research, the coupon business is 13.5 per cent of the total e-commerce shoppers in India, growing at the rate of 62.9 percent, with 7.6 million unique users a month (source).
The affiliate marketing space is huge. Besides companies, there are many freelancers who are selling coupons to make a quick buck.
However, in the organised segment, startups like Grabon, CouponDunia, 27coupons, CoupoNation, Pennyful and Cashkaro, to name a few, are vying to capture the market.
CouponDunia, acquired by Times Internet Limited last year, is the biggest competitor in the segment. Since this acquisition, the venture has witnessed significant growth. It has entered into brick-and-mortar retail. The company does a little under 10 million sessions a month between its mobile and web apps. Currently, the platform lists more than 2,000 online stores and 5000 restaurants.
Rocket Internet-backed coupon site CupoNation is another contender in the segment. Cashkaro is also making the competition neck and neck, with its unique deals and offers.
Accepting the competition posed by many in the segment, Ashok says, “We are working hard to change the competition landscape. Despite being less than two years old we are able to drive more than a crore visitors every month. With funding and proper technology backing we can be the biggest savings platform both online and offline in India.”