AkuPlusKamu: Daily Deals service from AdaDiskon.com
I think it is only a matter of time for AdaDiskon to have their own daily deals service, because at this time AdaDiskon is a site that provides various information about promotions and discount programs which held at various locations in Indonesia, so logically they have a fairly extensive network and fairly complete information about various discount offers.
AkuPlusKamu was officially launched on last March 15. From the AdaDiskon blog it was explained that AkuPlusKamu is an e-commerce program of AdaDiskon which dedicated to their communities and various merchants that have become their partners. As their initial appearance, AkuPlusKamu will provide a discount coupon offer for a few days. At this moment, there are deals that offer many kinds of food with 50% discount.
The interesting thing for me from this AkuPlusKamu release announcement was the jargon of 'pure social-commerce' which was pinned by AdaDiskon on their new service. AdaDiskon described it that they will improve and provide innovation in the social element found in 'social buying' services or group buying or groupon clone.
The level of competition on daily deals websites in Indonesia are very tight; each service provides what they think are better than the other, to face that level of competition, AkuPlusKamu presents the social element, first is by using Facebook log-in as the only way to register to become a member in AkuPlusKamu.
The second is by creating a rewards program that will give prizes for those who can invite their friends to join AkuPlusKamu. Users that invited most friends up to May 15, 2011 will receive various gifts. There are 5 prizes to five winners (by rank). AkuPlusKamu also completed the 'race' with a special page to display the ranking member which contains a ranking position list of the users who has most friends joined AkuPlusKamu.
I have tried to log-in with a Facebook account and some features which seem to be optimized as the social element of AkuPlusKamu is the notification of the relation that we can get when they are making order. There are also buttons that allow users to do the invitations directly to all their relations.
Actually I feel that the social elements featured from AkuPlusKamu service as now has provided is still not enough. Other services have also been trying to implement social elements (group buying) by applying a referral program with the lure of cash prizes. It means nothing really new and special from those gift facilities that could tempt people to join in AkuPlusKamu.
Another strategy that can be taken is to maximize the community that has formed in AdaDiskon service, whether it is on their site or on the social networking accounts which turn into promotional channels, including Twitter. That is how AkuPlusKamu can acquire and manage community of AdaDiskon (by the time this article is up, the number of people who 'Like' AdaDiskon are 54,363 accounts).
AdaDiskon itself is one of the startup which is quite accomplished and has plenty enough members, both from users and partners (merchants), and at least 3 times received some awards: Top 50 Asia Application 2010, Sparx Up Award 2010, and Best Consumer Indigo Fellowship 2010. So let's wait what kind of facilities or social element would be added to the AkuPlusKamu service.
Thanks Rajasa for the tip.
Translated by Nita Sellya