Groupon India to launch services in Goa in Jan 2014

Groupon India's contribution to its parent company Groupon International is small at present but company expects it to grow significantly going forward

Deals company Groupon India today said it will be launching its services in Goa in January next year, expanding the network to 12 cities across the country.

"We are present in 11 cities currently, which are Delhi, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata and we will be launching Goa in January," Groupon India CEO Ankur Warikoo told PTI.

Stating that the company is growing at a good rate, Warikoo said currently, Groupon is selling a deal worth Rs 1,300 every 26 seconds as compared to 33 seconds last year.

"Last year, we sold a deal every 33 seconds, this year that number has reduced to 26 seconds, so we are now selling a deal every 26 seconds on an average. The average deal is around Rs 1,300," he added.

Warikoo, however, refused to share the average value of a deal last year but said it was lower than Rs 1,300.

"We have a 48% repeat buying ratio which means 48% of the customers who bought anything on day one are likely to buy again by day 30," he added.

It offers deals across three categories, including local services which is the main category and offers deals on restaurants, spas, saloons, dentists healthcare etc, than there is product category and the third is travel.

As per ComScore, the company has a 56% market share in the deal space. A few months back, the shopping site had launched a seven-day deal offering onions for Rs 9 per kilogram.

 
"We sold 22,500 kg of onions and got 16,500 new customers as a result of the deal," Warikoo said.

Groupon India's contribution to its parent company Groupon International is small at present but the company expects it to grow significantly going forward.

"It's not right now significant because we are still young in the Groupon world...Our objective is keep doubling the business but it's still a way to go for India to become a significant contributor. India though is one of the fastest growing countries in the portfolio," Warikoo said.

Groupon bought the Indian deal-of-the-day website SoSasta.Com in January 2011, and re-branded it as Crazeal in November 2011. The company was then re-branded Groupon India in November 2012.

"When we entered we realised that the market had to be looked at very differently, it was not about selling something sasta, it was about giving a great brand at a good price, it need not be cheap, so we went through a name change exercise because a lot of good brands we wanted to work with, they said we would not work with a brand that is called sasta," he said.

The company is working with brands such as Taj, Hilton, Oberio, Puma, Sony, Philips among other and it had over 5,000 merchants associated with it as on March 2013. The company is looking to increase its merchants to 6,500 by the end of this year.