All Posts in Zoutons

|In: Business|Last Updated:

With World-Cup & IPL fever hotting up, more & more consumers are glued on to television. It is interesting deal for companies who advertise during that time slot since the ROI would be much greater as compared to advertising during prime-time.

coupon_logoMany e-commerce companies have also joined the band-wagon of advertising on TV in order to grab more eye-balls which further helps in customer-acquisition !!! However, if you are an online shopper, just shopping from these e-commerce websites would only fetch discounts which are offered by them. But as we have mentioned in one of the earlier articles, rise of e-commerce has opened up opportunities for Last Mile logistics, Automation, Analytics, Online Coupon & Deal websites. Along with Coupon & Deal websites, massive growth has been observed in the “Price Comparison” space. Now consumers are not only interested in deals but before they purchase a product, they want to “compare prices” across different e-commerce websites. This is also gives a Human Feel to shopping 🙂

Lately, there has been an explosion of Coupon websites & as per recent analysis, it is observed that consumers mostly search for Amazon & Flipkart coupons !!! While looking out for discount for a tablet on Amazon.in, we came across some interesting Amazon India Coupons & we could buy that tablet at a much better price !!! If as a consumer, you are looking out for Vouchers which offer deals on specific categories; you can have a look at some interesting line-up of Amazon India Vouchers

As consumers, it becomes important that we shop from known e-commerce websites & at the same time, get a pie of extra discount through these deals & coupons 🙂

Image Courtesy – The Maven Of Social Media

|In: Marketing|Last Updated:

With the growth of online-commerce in India, there are many businesses that have been built to cater to that explosive growth. With growing demand, there have been more startups emerging in the space of Customer Support, Last Mile Delivery/Logistics, Automation [e.g. Grey Orange Robotics]. This article in Economic Times points out that e-commerce firms are the new drivers for the BPO industry & with more startups emerging in that space, this number would surely see an upward-trend !!!

The following presentation from Accel Partners gives the complete outlook on “online commerce in India”

With the growth of e-commerce & “hefty” discounts being the major driver for sales, what if the consumer gets some more discount than what the e-commerce website is already offering. Yes, We are talking about “Coupon Websites” !!! Coupon/Deal websites are “by-products” of online-commerce.

If you are looking for some great deals for gifting to your loved ones, do give Zoutons a shot !!! Since consumers buy only from trusted e-commerce websites like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon; getting additional dicsountes for products brought on those sites would definitely be an “icing on the cake” 🙂 You can have a look at the Snapdeal coupon codes & Snapdeal Coupons which might help you to save some more pennies !!!

With the increase of online frauds in India, it becomes necessary that “Shopper becomes Smart” & along with discounts also checks the authenticity of the e-commerce website. Some of the smart shopping tips are:

  1. Shop from “known” websites e.g. Flipkart, Jabong, Shopclues, High5Store etc.
  2. Ensure that “Digital Payment” happens over secure [SSL] channel
  3. Ensure “not to save” the Credit Card is not saved. Since, no matter how renowned, the website is; better to keep CC information to yourself !!!
  4. Compare prices of “existing products” on price-comparison engines
  5. Get additional discounts on products by grabbing coupons from coupon/deal websites
  6. Untrusted app stores will continue to be a major source of mobile malware. Traffic to these stores will be driven by “malvertising,” which has grown quickly on mobile platforms [Source – McAfee]

In fact, “Brick & Mortar” stores are also embracing Digital Couponing” [A market that can be explored by Couponing websites]

|In: Business|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

In the past, we have reviewed many couponing websites & one more player that we plan to review today is Zoutons. Zoutons*, a Delhi based startup is a coupons and deal aggregation platform with the tagline “The Loot is on”, helping online shoppers and deal hunters to locate latest coupons and offers from a vast pool of online retailers, banks & brands. It is an online player in the deal aggregation space to offer coupons and deals of top 50 Indian banks & more than 500 pan-India brands.

Zoutons

Store Coverage

Like other deal aggregation websites, Zoutons lists deals from major e-commerce companies namely Flipkart, Jabong, SnapDeal etc. It covers all major categories namely Apparels, Electronics, Baby products, Food etc.

Design

The overall design of the website is very simple & “Suggestion”/AJAX based search worked very well. Each store had two sections – Deals & Coupons though, for most of the stores; Deals out-numbered the Coupons by a big-margin. We tried couple of Coupons & they worked fine !!

Zoutons_Filter

Popular & Latest Coupons

The home page of Zoutons lists the latest as well as popular coupons. It would have been interesting if there would have been another section named “Coupons Fast Expiring” so that it would help in the last minute sale of those coupons/deals.

Also, the “Most Popular Coupons” section covers only 3 Shops; Back & Forth navigation would have been an added advantage & would have ensured that user covers more coupons rather than spending time in searching for those coupons.

Zoutons_Popular_StoresBank Specific Offers

Another “unique” feature which we liked during the review is “Bank Specific Offers”.  The site lists deals that are not specific to any particular store but deals offered by different banks. You can find one of the deals here. Though the number of banks being listed were handful, but considering that Zoutons is a startup; we expect that it would be work under progress 🙂

Improvement Areas

 
Design : As mentioned above in some cases, searching for coupons/deals took bit of an effort. Also, since it is the festival of lights[Diwali]; it would have been an add-on if the Home Page would be customized according to it.

About Us : When we checked the “About Us” section, there was no mention on the founders, their mantra etc. Considering that there are tons of couponing websites, “About Us” would have added a great level of credibility. Read about importance of “About Us” for startups here

Mobile App : Though Zoutons covered deals spanning different categories there was no mention of mobile app on the website. We are sure that development of Zoutons App might be in progress but still a new section “Coming Soon” where such announcements can be listed can add a new metric to measure their customer growth [Page similar to “Coming Soon”  Page]

While doing the review, we came across this interesting presentation on how “Brick & Mortar retailers are embracing Digital Couponing” [A market that can be explored by Couponing websites]

Do give Zoutons a spin & share your feedback in the comments section…

* – Sponsored