Daily Deal Site Uses Radio to Stay Above Competition

With four main contenders in this pool: Rupu.co.ke, Zetu.co.ke, Mocality.co.ke and the latest, Capital Deals, Kenyans are spoiled for choice on the various bargains daily. Capital Deals launched last quarter of 2011 is the newest competition.

Daily deal websites offer goods or services with remarkable discounts but with limited goods and services on offer. It is mostly used as a marketing strategy rather than a sales avenue. Goods and products on offer are on a daily cycle. This concept has gone well with the audience in Kenya. There are many products and services of offer at great discount prices. From dinner at restaurants, beauty products and services, tickets to plays and many more products.

So what’s different with Capital Deals? For one they have an extra edge in the fact that they use Capital FM, the parent owner, to advertise their daily deals. This gives them an edge over Zetu.co.ke and Mocality Deals, which currently use social media to publicize their offerings. This also means for clients who put up their offerings on Capital Deals website, they will get free radio advertising, which usually costs thousands.

Ms Waithera Kibiru, Head of Digital Media and IT at Capital Group Limited, is full of optimism that with over 14 million Kenyans connected to the internet, the outlook for daily deals is nothing but good.

Speaking to HumanIPO, Waither Kibiru said, “Daily deals websites offer a platform to which small and medium sized businesses can market themselves in a cost effective manner and which will benefit consumers, as they will have a wider option for goods and services.”

Capital Deals has partnered with another daily deals website, Rupu.co.ke, to offer deals to customers. As to how this relationship worked, Ms Kibiru said, “Rupu is an e-commerce portal, and as such we are not direct competitors, as Capital is a media site. At Capital, we service to inform, educate and entertain our audience; hence our relationship with Rupu is very symbiotic.”

Ms Kibiru testified to HumanIPO that their clients have seen a difference in how they market their products and services. ”Our clients have seen the value of this service, as it is cost efficient and very measurable. For the SME, they get fantastic exposure from our media i,e radio digital media, which they otherwise would not have been able to afford.”

Skeptics have termed the daily deals concept unattainable. But with the giants like Groupon and LivingSocial posting billions in revenue, this marketing concept is nothing to play down. Daily deals would be one way of introducing and maintaining the idea of ecommerce to Kenya.

As Ms Kibiru says, “E-commerce is primarily based on trust, which has to be earned and cannot be demanded. We are seeing people slowly embracing it on specific platforms, thus our partnership with Rupu. Their track record in the e-commerce space combined with the credibility of the Capital FM brand will get more people to embrace and try e-commerce.”