Tag Archive for Koovs

Acquisition candidate in Group discount space?

29 Aug, 2010  1 Comment

Immense hectic activity going on in the group discount space in India. Some new group discount portals like lootmore.com have sprung up with sole intention of getting acquired, portals like Taggle and Snapdeal have able to raise Venture Capital and some players like Grabbon have merged themselves with bigger player Snapdeal.

Coming days you may witness further consolidation is this space. There is a strong buzz in the market that one of the prominent player from NCR in group discount space going to be acquired by bigger player or it could be an internet company interested in getting a pie in this group discount space.

Lets look at their monthly traction wrt unique visitors -

Mydala_snapdeal_koovs

In my view Mydala and koovs are doing extremely well in terms of cracking number of deals and also the size of deal. I had a word with Anisha Singh CEO of mydala and as per her most of their deals are above 500 bucks and sells well which implies more margin for mydala. I had chat with Manish Tewari of Koovs and as per him most of Koovs deal are below 300 bucks and they offer maximum discount on the original value, clearly they are targeting the lower base of pyramid.

Lets wait and watch this space.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Groffr – group buying portal for real estate

18 Aug, 2010  No Comment

Groffr

Welcome to the world of Group buying, one more startup called Groffr derived from for Group Offer has emerged but with a difference. Unlike other group websites which offer discounts on spas or restaurant spends, Groffr groups people together for buying high value items like real estate and cars.

Groffr is a a year old Mumbai based startup founded by Vikhyat Srivastav and Sandeep Reddy, both IIMK graduate and worked earlier with PE real estate funds. The group aggregates people interested in a particular property and negotiates with the developers for a discounted price for everyone.

 Groffr

 

Given the recent volatility in the sector, it makes sense for the real estate developers and car dealers also as they are able to sell a good chunk of their high value inventory in one shot. It’s a win-win situation for both the parties. Buyers get a good bargain while developers are able to sell a lot of flats in one go while saving on marketing cost.

Groffr has worked on deals with Emaar MGF, Indiabulls reality, Mahindra Lifespaces and has tied up with real estate consulting firms like Knight Frank to source lucrative deals from the developers.

Groff USP –

  •  Only player to club people so that everyone gets discounts on high valuable items like homes, cars.
  • Collective wisdom also influences decision while making purchases which Groffr enables.
  • Finally high margin on which Groffr operates.
-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Potential Indian buy for Groupon

20 Jul, 2010  2 Comments

Immense mind boggling  activity in the social buying segment taking place in India. Groupon, the American giant is valued close to a billion dollars. A couple of smaller Indian players have sold out. A few have grown bigger and better. Their margins have grown stronger, touching the 30′s, than what I earlier predicted. Funding has come to a few and others are on the negotiating table. This sector is up for a lot of action in the next 6 months.

Recently, I dug deeper and found some interesting facts.

It all started in Oct – Nov 2009 when enthusiastic copy cats holed in dimly lit rooms in Bangalore and New Delhi were burning mid night oil to find a suitable name for the Indianized version of the portal in a hush hush manner. Some are as funny as Mydala, (who came up with that) the others found it convenient to even phonetically copy the name; Grabbon (restricted to Bangalore, sold out to Snapdeal), let alone the site design.  Koovs.com (I don’t even know what it means), started out in Bangalore and now in Delhi, Kolkata, tried to be different but not by much, copied the background image, changed the color and the layout. Snap though came up with an up market name forgot that the word is usually associated with breaking rather than “executed quickly”.

The race today is to have presence in maximum cities before a global player sets its eye on India. The strategy then could most certainly be of a sell out and hence we see an increased flow of money in this segment. So when Koovs.com partners with Myntra.com and sells FIFA jerseys in cities, in and beyond its operating boundaries, Snapdeal gets “inspired” and displays 14 more cities only to sell customizable mugs. Mydala on the other hand slipped into selling products by displaying a deal to sell Olive Oil.

According to the industry insiders, there is an ongoing hectic consolidation amongst the players, again to appear bigger and improve upon the quality of deals which went missing with size. Koovs it seems has been the only player, refusing to sell off and firmly on its “national” quest. With money flowing in, Koovs will be interesting to watch. Unconfirmed news suggests some big tieups on the cards for this player which has improved its quality and range of deals.

Dala starting out of Delhi with deep pockets struggles to sell and is not doing well out of Delhi. Snap prefers tie-ups with merchants having national presence and hasn’t focused on local execution much. Result, quality of deals has suffered and hence the acquisition of Grabbon. This site doesn’t even display the number of coupons sold, so you can’t know their selling potential but if the quality of discounts is anything to go buy, they could not be doing very well. Koovs from Bangalore is a self funded venture started by few IITians shows some promise for quality of deals although they are restricted by their lack of financial muscle and merchant contract implementation. Recently starting out in Delhi, they can only find it tough as the city space is already crowded. Kolkata, abandoned by all the other players, could be a smart move, time will tell. Grabbon, another Bangalore based venture started out decent, has now been acquired by Snapdeal.

Taggle, the latest entrant with funding; will have an uphill task to justify their execution model and to go by the quality of deals featured and numbers sold. Taggle is not for the masses its for the classes and average deal price is Rs. 750. Panic will set in, if revenues don’t justify the investments, soon.

I think either Koovs or Snapdeal are most likely to surge ahead as the leader. Since Koovs is the only Indian player to have International presence in Singapore and if rumors hold any water, there are two more countries ready for launch. Koovs will need a shot of green backs to be able any significant impact at a national scale or will share the fate of wanamo or grabbon. Koovs, already the biggest site in Bangalore in terms of numbers of transactions on the site, will be a force to reckon, if their initial success in Bangalore is anything to go by. Bangalore is significant by the presence of all major players and is interesting to watch since the winner here sure must have the team and the conviction to take on the country and replicate their operational supremacy. Snap, sure has financial muscle but is behind Mydala in terms of number of quality of deals. But the ground level execution of Mydala’s deals has been shaky.

I wouldn’t stick my head out any further by guessing how this battle of startups enfolds but sure do know, that the eventual daddy of the Indian market will be bought out by the mother of it all, Groupon. What else do you think a company worth $ 1.2 billion would do if not buy out its best imitator in the soon to be the hottest ecommerce market; India.

Guest Post by Arun; Arun is a senior director at a consumer research firm.

Will Indian clones of Groupon able to raise fund?

7 Apr, 2010  4 Comments

BBmydalaKoovsGrabbon

Groupon raising close to $30M triggered its clones to emerge globally, there is a groupon clone in every continent barring Antartica. Groupon clones in UK, Russia and Germany have successfully raised capital from VC firms, question arises here will Indian clones can also taste the success like their european counterparts.

Lets look at the grouping portals in India – Grabbon, Koovs, Mydala, Snapdeal, Wanamo, Mobstreet, BindaasBargain.

In my view Groupon clone should feel highly fortunate if they able to raise funds and bring in VC to their board.

a) No clear differentiating factor – There is no stand out and clear differentiator, every clone works in same way, only differentiating factor i see is location/city they are serving and some clones are justifying the distinction on the basis of numbers of fans in their respective facebook page.

b) No entry barrier – One really don’t need any extra skill sets to come out with one more version of clone, with the help of 2-3 developers and 1lac of investment one can up and run the clone. Absolutely no entry barrier.

c) Deals aren’t lucrative – None of the clones are focussing on a particular vertical, most of the deals are related to restaurants, weekend package, spa etc. Interestingly none of them are focussing on the lines of Nimblebuy, its also a groupon clone founded by my ex CTO at Andale Prashant Nendungadi , it deals only in electronic items.

d) Lean Profit margin – how much margin grouping site makes on each deal? my view is somewhere around 10-15% and additionally they would be taking a flat fee as advertising charges from the merchant. So if a grouping site sells close to 500 deals then they are doing some business which may attract a VC, but unfortunately they tend to sell on an avg 25 deals/day.

so what do you think about Indian grouping sites, share your views.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com