[Marketing Mantra] So, What's the Deal of the Day?

[Logu]

India stands at a significant zone globally on the scale of internet usage with near about 7% of its population networked via internet (source: Mckinsey) and the marketers have already started capitalizing this mere potential aggressively once again, after learning so many good lessons from the dot com breakdown happened in the year 2000. Online portals selling goods and services is not new for Indian market , however, the current market has gained so much of attention among the individual investors and the venture capitalists to pump-in loads of money to develop web portals that sells most of the products/services.  

This story board is not about the portals that are selling products/services, but the ones that are selling DEALS 24/7

The strategy being tried out this time is quite very different; the mantra is “The Deal(s) of the Day”. Snapdeal.com, 99labels.com, Fashionandyou.com, Dealsandyou.com, Synergy.com, Flipkart.com and etc., are few of the websites that are selling products/services with a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of highest discounts that the market has ever seen.

The portals demarcate themselves with the kind of products/services that they caters the market and the portfolio includes books, DVDs, Gaming Consoles, PC & accessories, Mobile phones, vouchers for restaurants, health & beauty services, Footwear, branded lifestyle accessories, fragrances, watches, garments for men and women and etc., and they are smart enough in their business process that they neither have storage shelves nor piled the products anywhere physically, rather, the kind of business association that they create with the distributors/dealers and with the main service providers helped them to invite prospective crowd towards their portals. If we can dig-it up further, we can also understand that few of the portals are very unique by acting just as an intermediate to bring business for their partners by giving out discount vouchers to the end user by taking only their commission and letting the customer to pay rest of the money directly when he gets/avails the product/service.  Snapdeal.com is one of these kinds.

Genuine Business with Transparency:

• ·         Products are brand new when it reaches you
• ·         You can go through the complete configuration, features and specifications of the products in the portal.
• ·         These portals are secured enough for transactions and most of the portals are also availing “cash on delivery” option
• ·         Door delivery is free for most of the products and the delivery happens in a bandwidth of 2 days to 7 days through a standard courier service. The interesting part is Flipkart.com has got its own delivery people who drop the products that you purchase with the best packing that you can ever see
• ·         All the portals are equipped with a full-fledged customer support team who can help you out round the clock

Having said all these, none of the portals assure for the guarantee and warranty from their side for the products/services availed from them but they have are keeping the buyers noted about the post sale services promised by the respective brands of the products  being bought.

How it works?

Membership base is the key for this business model. Bigger the membership base bigger would be the probability of revenue. So, these portals are concentrating much in expanding their base by inviting more people to be a part of their portal with a free membership being offered.  Word-of-mouth and Google ads are helping these portals to attract the prospective members and from the day one of your registration, the portals will start sending SMS and emails with the information on the deals of the day and then starts the actual business.

There are also lot of indirect marketing advantages that this business concept spills out by lime-lighting many of the new brands to invite fresh customers to test their products/services through heavy discount tags. The kind of exposure that these portals create for the partnering brands through bulk email and SMS campaigns everyday is the best of its kind in the recent days of marketing era that facilitate many of the small pocket entrepreneurs to reach-out masses in the most effective way with better ROI comparatively.

I don’t want to come in to a discussion by placing a question on the longevity of this business model as they are surviving on very least margins day-in and day-out to beat the growing completion. Also, on the other grounds the success path is not predictable as it all lies completely on the quality aspects of the products and service level fulfilments that these portals maintain throughout.

To add-on: SnapDeal recently raised $40 millon from Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and IndoUS Venture Partner to expand its business. Source: ET

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Posted By Logu to Marketing Mantra at 8/04/2011 11:29:00 PM