Rising demand of EComm biz means an equal growth Of Coupon Industry

Hola amigos, people-who-love-discounts! We’re just kidding. We all love discounts as much as we love free food. Talking of discounts; there are vouchers, gift cards, BOGO things, cashback, and then to combine all these, we have COUPONS!

Coupons and cash back bring happiness to us in loads. Especially for us, Indians, who love to save money and when demonetization is hitting us hard in the guts. Almost every eCommerce website today offers coupons or cashbacks because of some obvious reasons. It attracts customers’ eye, binds their interest which somehow builds customer loyalty and as a result of which, the coupon industry today is growing rapidly which begets exponential rise of eCommerce. It is a trend that is fast catching up with the rest of the world.

Quoting some stats of 2013, Indian consumers redeemed coupons worth 100 million and more, accounting for a share of 13.5% from the total eCommerce market with coupon business growing at the rate of 62.9 percent with 7.6 million unique users a month. While in the US, the digital coupon distribution numbers stood at 329 billion in 2013, offering a saving of $1,617 per US citizen.

Some stats also said that out of 39 million total online shoppers, Online shoppers searched coupons and deals for a total of about 37.05 Million in India. Mobile internet use resulted in a 14.2% growth of traffic in the Indian online retail market. With more and more coupon websites and e-stores focusing on taking advantage of the mobile platforms. Although generic terms like “coupons” and “promo code” still dominate the search trend, brand specific terms are on the rise. Top upcoming brands seem to be ola, dominos, the US, jabong, and paytm.

According to Google reports, coupon industry in India has grown 20 times since January 2009 with December 2014 being the peak of this trend. No wonder that in recent months, we estimate that on an average 200 new coupon websites go live in India.

The coupon industry in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 57% between 2012 and 2016 as compared to a meager 3.6 percent increase in the US coupon market. But it doesn’t imply that coupon industry is anywhere less in The States. Some of the worldwide famous coupon websites come from the US like Groupon, RetailMeNot etc.

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Lastly, In a country full of demonetization policies, go avail coupons!

Originally contributed by Vipin Kumar Yadav. Vipin is Founder and CEO of CouponHaat, an online eCoupon store in India which is growing at a good pace with the time and they are even gearing up for a good round of funding from VCs.