Detik Deal Do not Offer Deal Anymore, Does the Natural Selection Happen?

I got the information that DetikDeal as a daily deals (especially for group purchase) service supported by a giant online media, Detikcom, now does not offer daily deals anymore. Its last service is on last August 19th 2011. We do not know whether it is because of approaching the Lebaran day or they have already surrendered in this business. Actually, there are not many events shown in DetikDeal, the deal purchases are not so many, even the twitter account only shares about old feed deals without any interaction with (future) costumers. DetikDeal was established in May this year.

DetikDeal is not the only one facing the tight competition of daily deals sites in Indonesia. Some other daily deals that sometimes I visit—though still offer their deals—seem to be in the saturation point. The coupons that are sold for more than 100 for a deal can be counted with fingers. There are only two sites remain active. They are DealKeren and Disdus. This may be not a surprise since both of them have affiliated with giant international daily deals. DealKeren, which claiming to have domination around 60% of the market, can sell around 1000 coupons for each deal.

In many business sectors, natural selection is possible to happen. The surprising thing is the short time to reach saturation point in this business and breaking the bubbles. Based on our documentation, daily deals sites has just started in Indonesia since August 2010 with Disdus and DealKeren. It means that it takes only a year to be in saturation point and stagnancy.

It is quite sure that no more daily deals able to compete those two sites. In a rough calculation, i am sure that there are not more than 100 daily deals exist in Indonesia, while in Korea which is smaller country than Indonesia, they have 300s daily deal sites and they still survive together. The question is, will the other Indonesian daily deals survive?

In my opinion, one way that taken by Valadoo can be a model. Valadoo turn to weekend getaway area, offers holiday trip, soccer match tickets, and other leisure packages. They do not always offer bombastic discount like 50%. They give more about tips and experience for the offered packages. For me, focusing in one segment is a right revitalization for daily deals startup that has narrower link and smaller money than DealKeren and Disdus.

In addition, to make local deals is an effective way, for example giving promotion only for certain region like Yogyakarta and Surabaya only. There are still many cities in Indonesia have not been touched by deals. However, it is clear that expand the deals to other Island than Java will require higher cost.

Nonetheless, we still need to keep awareness. As stated by DealKeren CEO, Adrian Suherman at press conference about LivingSocial acquisition toward DealKeren, weekend getaway will be one of the segment targets of DealKeren as the manifestation of their main service in the USA. Thus, for those who feel comfortable with the segment domination have to be aware of the giant competitor like DealKeren. Continue innovation to keep costumer for being bored may be the right key.

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