Times Internet's Coupondunia to add offline deals for FMCG consumers

Times Group-promoted discount aggregator Coupondunia will soon offer offline deals to consumers in groceries and clothing retail, a senior company executive said.

"Very soon we will add retail stores, and are also going to offer offline discount coupons in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods segment) next month," its founder and chief executive Sameer Parwani told PTI here today.

Backed by Times Internet, which is the online vertical of the Times Group, Coupondunia was merged with TimesDeal last year and began to focus on offline discounts starting with restaurants.

Coupondunia, which competes with the likes of Groupon India, CupoNation, Cashkaro etc, is finalising ties with leading FMCG manufacturers as well as modern retailers, he added. It was launched in 2010.

Modern clothing and accessory stores like Zara, Mango, and Marks & Spencers will soon offer consumers discounts through coupons, he indicated.

"In the case of e-commerce and clothing retail stores the discounts are powered by retailers, whereas for FMCGs, the discounts will be powered by manufacturers," Parwani said.

The coupons can be downloaded from the Coupondunia website or app, or cut-outs from newspapers, and discounts will be available at cash-counters of multiple hypermarkets, he explained.

Coupondunia has more than 3000 listed restaurants in six cities--Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and Ahmedabad. "For FMCG and retail, we will begin with these cities, and include Hyderabad," Parwani said.

"We are aggressively hiring. We will have over 250 employees by the year-end, from the current 150," he said, adding "to grow our presence in restaurants, we need to develop face-to-face relationships...for modern retail however, our operations can be more centralized."

Since Coupondunia launched their mobile app last year, "there have been more than 1.5 million downloads," he said.

An average of 30 lakh coupons are redeemed every month through Coupondunia, according to company statistics, with an average of 4500 deals added each month.

Coupondunia partners with e-commerce players like Jabong, Snapdeal and Flipkart to offer consumers online deals.

Currently, over 80 percent of their discounts are availed online, he indicated.

"More transactions happen in the offline world. If we want to help people save money on anything and everything, we have to help them in the offline world," he said, adding this will eventually help drive sales through modern trade.