MurahRek.com: Surabaya's own daily deals

The daily deals competition scene in Indonesia is getting pretty exciting. After two of the largest Indonesian deals sites were acquired by the two largest sites in the US, Disdus by Groupon and DealKeren by LivingSocial, several local deals sites from different cities are popping up with their own characteristics. An example from Yogyakarta is MbakDiskon which was covered in DailySocial some time ago.

Now there's a local daily deals site from Surabaya called MurahRek.com. The name already carries the charm of its city of origin. MurahRek.com isn't that different from other deals sites and the offerings are even similar, (food, spa, restaurants, car wash, travel, etc.) and the discounts are quite attractive, ranging from 50% to 90%.

The way MurahRek.com works isn't that different either from the others and rather simple. Payment can be done by funds transfer using BCA or cash payment at MurahRek's office at Ruku Pengampon Square D-2, Jl. Semut Baru, Surabaya, East Java.

"MurahRek.com was launched on 25 June 2011. For the launch we featured a free iPad 2 promo for lucky customers, which will be drawn on 15 August. We first began offering deals from 5 July and every 3 to 4 days we launch a new deal," said MurahRek CEO Agnes Magdalena Sutanto to DailySocial via email.

Agnes explained that while Surabayans do use the Internet, they mostly use it to access Twitter, Facebook, and visit particular websites. For online shopping however, Surabayans generally are more reluctant and less trusting because they are more cautious when spending their money.

This behavior is different from Jakartans who are more comfortable in using their credit cards for various transactions. They are also more trusting with payment systems other than cash. Surabayans trust only particular banks in their transactions and only use their credit cards for promotional offers, otherwise, they resort to cash.

"Surabayans are fond of big discounts whenever there's a sale and there will always be crowds. With MurahRek.com we are trying to reshape the mindset of Surabayans. We want to introduce a new way to enjoy discounts in interesting places in Surabaya, but again we have to educate the people regarding the methods, process, and benefits in using MurahRek.com," said Agnes.

The majority of daily deals customers in Surabaya according to Agnes is made up of students and office workers. Customers of MurahRek.com range from 14 to 40 years old with very few beyond that range. This is similar to other cities such as Bandung, Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

After Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and now Surabaya launching their own daily deals sites, which other city will be next?