Groupin.PK is the latest in internet ventures by Pakistani entrepreneurs. Its method of operation and idea is similar to Groupon.com (name is slightly different), the massively popular couponing service in the United States.
The basic idea of Groupon, and by extension Groupin.pk , is that each day it offers a deal available for purchase in 24 hours. The discounts range from a minimum of 50% up to 90%. For example, a restaurant may offer a 60% discount and Groupon will publish it as their daily deal. Now to avail that deal a minimum number of people have to sign up for that deal. Lets say, 100 people. Now when a 100 people sign up for that deal, the deal is activated and Groupon sends you a coupon/voucher which you can print out and use as cash. Also, if, at the end of 24 hours (the amount of time each deal is valid for purchase), the minimum number of people is not met, you wont be charged. The theory here is the collective power of multiple buyers helps lower the cost, yet ensuring that the business does not loose too much money by offering such high discounts.
Interesting bit is that last year Google tried to buy Groupon in a deal estimated to be around 5-6 billion dollars. But they failed in their attempt and instead are launching a direct competitor, named Google Offers. Many argued that rejecting the takeover bid was a mistake but with rumors afloat of a $15 billion Groupon public offering in the horizon, seems like the critics were wrong.
Inspired by Groupons’ success, SnapDeal, India’s very own couponing service was started in India and it has gone from strength to strength. Launched in 2008 it now boasts over a million members. Recently they raised over 12 million dollars in investment and plan to expand to cover more cities in addition to the 50 they already cater to.
As for Groupin.pk, it is recruiting members at the moment, trying to build a proper user base before taking sail. There’s a free iPhone for referring all your friends to it for the Apple fans amongst you.
They will offer deals for restaurants, theaters, spas, boutiques and stores among other things. Groupin is also inviting businesses to get registered with them. Currently, the cities Groupin offers deals for are Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta but its only logical to assume that they’ll grow with time.
If they can emulate only a part of the success stories of Groupon and SnapDeal, they’re going to be an immensely popular stop for the discount loving, deal craving people amongst us.
nice try,
a best thing for the public of Pakistan,
i think everyone should take advantage of get discounted.
Great Initiative…!
I thought GroupOn type services will not catch up in our country but its nice to see people are tasking the challenge. Now what I want is foursquare here in Pak… More Users…
But the name should have been different, they copied it and just replaced a letter
haha nice :p
Groupon of Pakistan :D
Faisalabad is not listed :(
can anyone tell me how can refer a friend? i refer with different ways but my refer counts still zero.. what is the procedure of refering?
did they join??
It is good to see but for some reason i just have a feeling they are not gogin to make it big!
no deals there….. just refering… :@
huh? This is theft of intellectual property of those who originally conceived this idea. Can pakistanis have anything original?
Seem there are bright chances this could help alot of small businesses in Pakistan and the consumers could save a lot of move on general stuff..I would really like this to work ..i’m sick of paying too much for everything.
@pappu : lets try something which can help me and my fellow Pakistanis save some money.Mean while work on something.btw there are already multiple clones of this idea across the world.use the web.
The idea is to provide the services to pakistani people, it doesn’t matter from where this idea was originally generated. i am very much exited to see this website live soon because i heard there will be some great discounts available on this site.
@waleed: you need to login to Groupin.pk and you will see the tools to import your contact via gmail, hotmail and yahoo. When your friends will join groupin, your referral count will be incremented. What i am doing right now is spreading my referral link on different networks like facebook and twitter to get many referrals. And my count is increasing…. :)
Who cares if its a Groupon ripoff.
We should be glad someone’s actually taking a risk with this concept in Pakistan. They have my well wishes.
We all moan about how everything’s so expensive and out of reach. Groupin actually gives us a chance to buy things we’ve been wanting to buy.
I personally am quite to see something of this scale being introduced in Pakistan and I want to congratulate the marketing team of Groupin.
Whoever they are, they are doing a great job!
Finally someone have taken a step to initiate something in Pakistan. Now we are proud to say Groupin.pk is ours not a freelance or outsourced project from some American or british organization.
Groupin will give us a chance to explore new things in our city with quite an impressive range of discount.
Come on people wake up and appreciate the effort of these people. Hope to get a chance to work for groupin.pk as its our own product.
Best of Luck to the team of marketers, developer behind groupin, we wish you all a successful launch on it.
Groupon has recently bought indian site sosasta.com and some other sites worldwide. groupin might get a couple of million $$$ by selling their site!
Not sure I can trust the site. There is no “About us” or privacy policy or terms of service. Okay, so they won’t sell my email address, but what abotu everything else?? Will they sell my groupin habits (what products I try to buy, etc)?
Who runs it?
There are no deals on there yet so I think it’s safe to assume they haven’t fully launched yet.
As to who runs it, I’m sure its not some guy sitting at home with a bunch of friends with dreams of grandeur ;) Seriously though the back end work required for something of this scale requires dedicated professionals, so I’m sure there’s a serious organization behind it.
This looks like a paid review Aamir bhai :/ disappointed.
Saad, i can confirm, it is not paid. And we don’t do paid reviews.
I totally trust your word but the service is not even out yet and I have doubts on how it will perform. Then “An Online Giant in the Making?” is probably some over-saying.
I got one of their emails, sent the to talal to investigate, he wrote it.
I wouldn’t say its over-saying it. You just have to look at the success of Group-on and similar services launched in different countries. They have grown exponentially in seemingly no time. The success stories of the services launched on this idea led me to conclude that it will, or rather, should be a success. As for how it will perform in actuality, we’ll have to wait and see wont we?
If that’s how we review services =p then don’t forget to review http://tune360.pk built on the Spotify model by yours truly. I expect a headline like ‘Tune360 – This will change music in Pakistan forever’
Kidding! but the service is good do try.
I agree with Saad. We really need more of a personalized review rather than just getting a copy paste version of their press release sent to various bloggers.
We need to know if we can really trust the website. Who are these people – What is their launch date ..
This is a highly commendable effort. Hats off to Groupin.pk for launching this service in these testing times!
Great work….!
Wow!!…there seem to be a couple of similar group buying websites in Pakistan coming up…there’s this one started by Neomatrix gaming called Paisasavers.com which has already launched the Beta phase. Their facebook page says that they are launching today!! (15 March)
This should be an interesting to see how these sites evolve…Paisasavers.com has an interesting payment process….it seems they are going for a hybrid ecommerce solution nd for now are offering the coupon as cash on delivery which is i guess because of the fear of fraud that comes with credit cards and also i guess they want to offer the service to people who do not have credit cards.
The Group buying in Pakistan concept and model that Paisasavers is following should be very interesting, at the moment they seem to be the only ones who have actually launched compared to others who are still in the process of gathering email addresses.
In the end it’s the customer that wins with more competition!
I dont think this site has a the potential of becoming so big, but if we take a close look at groupon the site has so much in it that i dont think any one could imagine being a single page website by interface doesnt mean that the site has limited options… you need to provide people options and that is one thing this groupin doesnt have at the moment. The website needs to have a lot more than what has been mentioned.
I hope you have an idea :) anyways its a great initiative taken.
i am reading you when u say discount sugar. So i am purchased this order. How i can purchased it. I am worker of library assistant.
@asad, you need to subscribe yourself on the website (groupin.pk)and purchase by the payment method available.by the way you cant have the sugar deal anymore as it has been sold out.subscribe and get mails on whts going to be featured next.good luck
I know who is behind groupin.pk and although they might be successful elsewhere but Pakistan is a whole new world. First, it’s a country which does not have the basics of online shopping such as credit cards, paypal etc. and second the culture itself is not one that stands behind anything that is from Pakistan. For example most people would support a foreign company or white skin and same holds true for products and services; local products and companies have a hard time being sold. Groupin is trying to bring mass online buying to the masses but in reality there is no such a thing in Pakistan (masses consists of 3 people in an internet café watching xxx movies)
Let’s assume there is a miracle and groupin.pk is being used by the Pakistani pubic, it will only last until someone from the west steps in (even if that someone is one person and has no brand equity in paksitan, as long as that person is white skin and foreigner, groupin.pk is doomed).
In india, Indians will always support the Indian brands and companies which is why even Groupon is having a hard time competing with snapppp dealll. Indians are nationalists and loyal where Pakistanis are ashamed of admitting they are Pakistanis and for sure in most cases are not loyal.
I could go on and on, on why groupin.pk will not succeed; it’s a pipe dream and history is a proven factor that Pakistanis will not support groupin.pk because it’s a brand that is backed by Pakistani founders and employs Pakistani staff.
I say groupin management is stupid to launch in Pakistan,
I also would say groupin staff is stupid to try to copy india
I would further add the people in Pakistan will not be loyal and will jump ship as soon as any of the western companies step in Pakistan including snaaaap deaaal who can in a single day outgrow groupin in Pakistan because deal buying is what the west does best.
But I would still say Good Luck some people learn everything the hard way.
Groupin.pk is good but not an online giant as well. There is so many portals in Pakistan working on near about same business tool but they fails because of Pakistani label on all of them. I have a lot of shops who availed with Groupin scratch cards, Groupin is good in advertisement but unfortunately not a real successful site. they need time for this. Here is coming up new web portals for Pakistan like Spefe.com and obuddy.pk
both of them provides market but with different way. Lat see what they can do? I am waiting for them also.
I am an active and un-biased satisfied cutomer of groupin. The deals I purchased were 10/10 perfect. There have been some issues in past but not now. They are improving day by day. Best of luck!
Is groupin still working in Islamabad??