CouponDunia (Now an Indiatimes company) is a digital coupon marketplace connecting shoppers looking for a great offer with businesses looking to increase their sales. They stand at four million visits a month, the #2 most downloaded Android app within the Lifestyle category, 500+ crores of business sent to their partners on an annual basis.
CouponDunia was still in it’s infancy when I was approached by the Boston based founder to do a major UX/UI makeover so it could be taken to a next level. It was a home-run website with no employees. Most of my initial work was based on studying how Coupon sites work around the world and how can we personalise it for the Indian demographic which is known for being reluctant to pay. I started off with improving the overall UI of the website.
To understand the market better, I had to start understanding how Indian did shopping. One of the most challenging tasks during the project was to talk to real people and find out whether they were open to shop online, and what would make them feel more comfortable. It was hard, but it needed to be done. I went to some of the largest shopping malls in the city and started interviewing random shoppers. As expected, it gave a lot of insights.
Despite having a billion people strong, India still lags behind when it comes to payment systems. Digital payment systems are non-existent & awareness on internet security is still low. So a significantly large portion of Indian market when it comes to online shopping is untapped. Except those in the Metro cities, people are generally reluctant on making online purchases, fearing fraud.
Shopping for Indian families is not just a chore, but a family outing. As much as they’d love to save money, they still love visiting the stores with friends and families. So we started testing offline deals. We started approaching local merchants and they got interested. That prompted us to start a sister site DealDunia.
10
Growth in Engagement
500
Merchant Signups
500
Revenue Growth
30
Subscribers Growth
Last year, CouponDunia was acquired by Times Internet Limited. If you have a similar project & are looking for someone who can build it from ground up, we should talk.
