Uluyu Give Coupons Out, “Old School Daily Deals?”

Daily Deals Concept or group purchase that we know so far is the system that make users buy the coupon in advance then use it. In fact, sometimes we don’t have time to use it until expire date; thus we lose our money. Now, how if we reverse the process? How if we pay as we use the coupon instead?

Uluyu has a slogan “free coupon for you” and bring up the old concept of discount coupon. Discount coupon can be downloaded for free, printed, and used at certain merchants. Costumers does not need to pay anything to Uluyu; all the paymens are done at the merchants. I guess that Uluyu gets a commission from every coupon used, not from the coupon sold like on most daily deals sites.

The coupon concept is not a new thing. In foreign country like US, the use of coupon to get discounted price is a common thing. Usually, this kind of coupon can be easily found and commonly used by middle low people. While in Indonesia, it is quite unusual. Although daily deals start to enter mainstream market, by now daily deals are still overshadowed by the credit card discount offered by credit card providers and banks. As a result, daily deals providers should give crazy discount, at least 50% or more.

The business process of Uluyu is quite risky. If the coupon is not used, Uluyu will get nothing. Let say there are 300 coupons printed but only 30 coupons used. Uluyu will bite their fingers knowing the commission they get. You can compare it to the standard daily deals which they get income in advance no matter users use the coupon or not.

However, the courage to let go the chance to get money in advance is quite interesting for users, at least they will download the coupon first without any fear. It is proven by the fact that from the 6 deals offered, there are at least 100 coupons downloaded from each deals, even there is a deal with more than 300 coupons downloaded. Only car wash and travel to Pulau Seribu travel service have lower number than that standard benchmark. Other than that, Uluyu us also describe the term and condition to use the coupon for each product to avoid confusion and fraudulence.

By the tight competition on daily deals in Indonesia, service providers start to fall down one by one. Let say DetikDeal or Maiplay that have stopped or moved to other business model. At least, Uluyu offers not really a new concept that actually not commonly offered on the internet for Indonesian market - especially for Jakarta region. Let see how long will this concept survive or even interest other technology startup enthusiasts to adopt this concept.