What A Deal: Onion at Rs 9/kg

American site Groupon offers All-India deal with 21,000 kg spread

Nasdaq-listed American company and onion deal in India? Well, yes. Chicago-headquartered daily deal site, Groupon, went live live from this afternoon with an offer to sell onion at Rs 9 a kg all over India! This was a price last seen in 1999, claims the company.
 

Price of onion breached the Rs 100-mark recently in some markets in India , and is now pegged at anything between Rs 50 and 60 across the country.

For the next seven days starting today, Groupon India will keep a three-hour window open for onions at a hugely discounted rate, chief executive Ankur Warikoo told Business Standard. “It’s going to be first come first serve from 1 pm to 4 pm daily for seven days.”

Groupon, which does crazy deals once in a while, managed the Rs 9 a kg offer through negotiation with a leading onion distributor of Delhi. “There’s no gimmick here, we are getting the price for the volume we’ve offered.” The site is aiming to sell 21,000 kg of onion in seven days or 3,000 kg a day. “We’ll sell maximum of 3,000 kg or end the deal at 4 pm, whichever is earlier.”

Even as onion will be home delivered anywhere in the country, the catch is that no address will get more than 1 kg during the entire offer period.

Groupon is lining up another crazy deal this month. Without sharing too many details, Warikoo said, this will be about a customer paying a certain amount for a deal, without knowing what he’s paid for. A blind deal?