UPDATED: Groupon leads Malaysia group buying market with RM4.25 million revenue in August 2011

How much revenue does group buying market in Malaysia generate? Dealshelve as Malaysia's most comprehensive group buying deals aggregator has compiled some interesting data about group buying market in Malaysia for August 2011.

Disclaimer: The statistics is purely based on data aggregated from group buying sites and we cannot be sure if any of the sites manipulated the number of sales in their deal pages.

August Statistics

Rank	Site	Revenue	Number of sales	Revenue per sale	Number of deals	Lowest price	Highest price	Average price
1	Groupon*	RM4.25m	78.2k	RM54.33	265	RM4.50	RM1488.00	RM146.56
2	Everyday	RM1.74m	110.9k	RM15.73	193	RM1.00	RM388.00	RM42.45
3	MyDeal	RM1.26m	43.1k	RM29.17	139	RM3.50	RM3988.00	RM225.80
4	MilkADeal	RM383k	8.1k	RM47.32	51	RM13.90	RM499.00	RM66.58
5	Jackcow	RM338k	16.9k	RM20.04	89	RM1.00	RM399.00	RM50.97
6	ILoveDiscounts	RM308k	7.8k	RM39.41	77	RM9.80	RM519.00	RM74.06
7	Dealmates	RM237k	5.0k	RM47.08	113	RM3.50	RM843.75	RM105.72
8	EziVoucher	RM205k	13.9k	RM14.76	34	RM3.90	RM199.00	RM32.65

* Groupon Malaysia's statistics comes from groupsmore.com instead of groupon.my.

Revenue

In terms of revenue, the August 2011 group buying market in Malaysia is clearly led by Groupon, followed by Everyday and MyDeal in quite a distance behind. The three group buying giants are in the leading pack which recorded more than RM1 million revenue in August.

The second pack of group buying sites consists of MilkADeal, Jackcow, Superdeals, ILoveDiscounts, Dealmates and EziVoucher, each generating around RM200k-400k revenue. They are followed by several medium-to-small players each with revenue ranging from few thousands to some with slightly more than RM100k.

In May 2011, Everyday was acquired by South Korea's Ticket Monster, and only recently Ticket Monster itself was acquired by Living Social, the number two giant in group buying industry after Groupon. This may suggest the 1-2 competition between Groupon and Living Social is now being replicated in Malaysia.

Interestingly, MyDeal, which was reported to hit RM2 million monthly revenue, managed to record only RM1.2 million revenue in August. Could it be due to festive period where people spend less time online looking for deals? Or this is their low month?

From the above figures, and the figures from other unpublished smaller sites, we estimate the revenue of the group buying market in Malaysia is in excess of RM100 million this year, which is an equivalent of RM9 million per month.

Number of sales

Everyday wins in terms of the number of deals sold, probably due to the lower price on the deals they offer. Consumer tends to buy deals under RM20 and buy multiple of them to share with family and friends. The average selling price and revenue per sale statistics tells this story well.

We also note that EziVoucher is a Penang-only deals site with quite an impressive number of sales. Most of the other sites are either covering multiple cities or Klang Valley only.

Revenue per sale and selling price

The top three sites for the highest revenue per sale are Groupon, MilkADeal and Dealmates while Everyday and EziVoucher are at the bottom of the chart. From business perspective, a high revenue per sale accompanied by a good number of sales might translate to profitability. But to normal consumers, if you like to find deals that costs less than RM20, you will most likely get them from Everyday or EziVoucher.

Conclusion

Group buying market in Malaysia is growing rapidly with many new startups jumping into the bandwagon. It is worth noting that it is not always the case that only the top sites get acquired or funding from investors. Sites in the second pack like Dealmates has also attracted investment. Everyone is eyeing this lucrative piece of market, but who will prevail? Joel Neoh's prediction that only three can survive in this market does not seem to realize at least in the near future.

How do we get the statistics

The statistics is compiled based on the deals aggregated by Dealshelve that ended in the month of August. The statistics:
• includes deals started in July and ended in August
• excludes deals started in July and ended in September
• excludes ongoing deals

The revenue is calculated by multiplying number of deals sold with the selling price. Note that the statistics might have included deals that did not reach its minimum quantity where the payment needs to be returned to the buyers. For a few sites that we do not aggregate in a complete manner due to technical issue, we collect data from the site's "Past Deals" pages and manually compile them. We might missed out or have duplication of some deals but the error rate is estimated to be no more than 10% of the figures published.

More

If you are the owner of the above-mentioned sites and found that the statistics presented is inaccurate, do drop us an email at info@dealshelve.com. Or if you are just interested to know more about this statistics, do leave a comment or drop us an email. Visit us at http://dealshelve.com.

Dealshelve featured in Sin Chew Daily

We were featured in the cover story for Sin Chew Daily print edition dated July 27, 2011. Our special thanks goes to Sin Chew Daily chief editor in CyberWorld section for the coverage.
In case if you missed the print edition, we have posted the digital copy of the news coverage below for your pleasure reading.

Groupon taking legal action on deals aggregator?

Earlier this week, we received a legal notice from the CEO of Groupon Singapore (formerly known as Beeconomic), stating that Dealshelve is displaying their deals in an "unauthorized" manner and legal action will be taken upon us if we do not remove their deals by Wednesday this week.

This bring us to an interesting question. Do daily deal aggregators like Dealshelve and Yipit have the legal right to display information extracted from daily deal sites? It is a common practice for daily deal aggregator to state the provider, i.e. source site, for all the deals that are listed. When a visitor is interested in a particular deal, there is usually a "find out more" button that will lead the visitor directly to the deal page on the source site itself.

Information collected by daily deal aggregator is readily published by daily deal sites on the Internet for public viewing. Anyone should be free to read or even share these deals. In fact, it is widely accepted that the key to success for daily deal website is to be able to broadcast their deals to as many people as possible in the shortest possible time. Most deals usually require minimum amount of buyers before they become available so sites, i.e. daily deal aggregators, that promote the deals can certainly help! Daily deal site that restricts sharing and publicity of their deals is unlikely to reach broader audience than they would have otherwise and most probably they also can't provide cheaper deals for the lack of mass buyers.

If referring and sharing information from other sites is illegal, how should we view the search results from Google or Yahoo? Should they be removed as well? If restriction in sharing becomes a trend, what can we get from the Internet as a whole? One of our principles is to be able to serve our users with deals from as many daily deal sites as possible so that they get to choose the one that they like the most. In this view, we humbly hope Groupon Singapore will be able to reconsider their request and withdraw the legal action against Dealshelve.

The original email.

See also views on this matter at other news sites:

• Groupon threatens to sue daily deals aggregator... for linking to it by The Next Web
• Groupon Singapore CEO Threatens Daily Deals Aggregator by Daily Deal Media
• Update: Groupon Singapore CEO Threatens Daily Deals Aggregator by Daily Deal Media
• Groupon Threatens Legal Action Against DealShelve by Social Times

Tips for Online Group Buying

Group buying is a relatively new concept on the internet and many people are purchasing for the first time. I would like to share a few tips to fellow group buyers wannabe because buying deals online does not always give you a happy ending.

Here are a few simple tips from Dealshelve:

1. Is it really a good deal? - Group buying sites like Groupon takes half of the amount you pay for the deal, so the merchants do not earn much (or they are actually losing money), they just offer the deal for publicity and advertising purpose. Some insincere merchants will jack up the price and claim to offer it at 50%-90% discounts to make sure they still earn money. How do you know it's a good deal? Ask your friends on Facebook!
2. Read the fine print and call the merchant - What's the catch? Watch out for terms and conditions like "only valid on weekdays" or "3 days in advance is required for appointments" etc. All deals have its own terms, this is normal, so make sure you align your expectation accordingly. If you are in doubt please call the merchants directly to get more information, please note that sometimes deal sites (especially inexperienced sites) do not communicate properly with the merchant and have the fine print poorly written. Also don't be surprised that the merchant's receptionist is not aware of such deal being offered by their company. Of course, some sites have a comment section where the representative of the deal site or merchant is always standby to answer your questions.
3. Beware of the number of buyers - Sometimes a deal is so good that it attracted more than ten thousands purchases. But please be aware that some merchants cannot cope with so many customers at once. Normally a deal site will extend the voucher validity period if the deal, for example, has more than 100 purchases, the period will be increased from one month to two months. An established and experienced group buying site will always set a maximum number to avoid over-purchase. If the deal has a great demand, it will be offered again in the future in a controlled manner. You certainly do not want your voucher to be useless because you can't book a time for your facial therapy on weekend, or you need to make a reservation 3 months in advance for your buffet dinner right?
4. Beware of phishing sites - I have not heard of any fraudulent group buying sites in Malaysia yet but we need to be very careful when doing online transaction. This should not be an issue for the renown sites but there are so many new sites appearing in recent months. Take China for example, it has more than 4500 group buying sites and is growing at the rate of approximately 10 sites per day! Phishing sites is a real problem in China. In Malaysia, Dealshelve estimates that there is 1 new site appearing every week. But the good thing is most sites in Malaysia and Singapore are using payment gateway like iPay88, NBePay and PayPal. We should have better confidence on sites that uses payment gateway than those sites that require direct bank transfer or online credit card payment without payment gateway because the payment gateway company can be last line of defense in case of fraudulence.

Do you have more specific tips on group buying? Please leave a comment or send an email to info@dealshelve.com. Happy group buying!

Do join us in Facebook:

1. Malaysia: http://www.facebook.com/DealshelveMalaysia
2. Singapore: http://www.facebook.com/DealshelveSingapore
3. Philippines: http://www.facebook.com/DealshelvePhilippines

Father's Day Group Buying Deals Offering More Than RM3k Discounts!

So have you purchased any group buying promotion to celebrate Father's day? (Don't tell me you've forgotten. Yes it is today!) Well, I am sure a lot of people did that, either the son/daughter bought for their father or the father bought it for himself :P.

Anyway you might be surprised to know that since the last few days, Dealshelve has collected and presented around 26 Father's Day specific deals from Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines group buying sites. All these deals offered our readers a total discounted price of RM3000++ (value is converted to Ringgit from Sing Dollar and Peso).

Most of the Father's Day deals are related to gourmet. The merchants assume that people would like to go to restaurant for Father's Day celebration. For example, there is a 53% discounted buffet lunch promotion at Makati Palace Hotel (Philippines).

There is another irresistible buffet lunch at Green Hills Cafe (Philippines) at 50% discounts.
Some people would prefer to surprise their dad with a box of cupcakes from Fancy Cakes (Philippines). It's at 50% discounts!
Another 42% discounted chocolate banana royal cake from Pure Addiction (Singapore), looks yummy~ :)
Other than that, the second majority of deals come from beauty and wellness category. Of course, most dads love looking half their age as much as moms do! Salon De San Lorenzo (Philippines) provided a deal with 58% discounted price, for hair cutting and coloring.
How about some dads without hair at all? Well, plant it! :) Yun Nam (Malaysia) hair care package offered this 98% discounted deal for your dad.
In fact, for those dads with moustache or beard, Skin Diva (Philippines) offered a 72% discounted laser hair removal package.
Some group buying sites also offered hotel packages just for Father's Day. For example treating the hardworking dad to a restful weekend away from all the hustle and bustle of the city at Makati Palace Hotel (Philippines).
Some prefer Hotel Celeste (Philippines) too.
Other than food, beauty products and hotel packages, there are some Father's Day deals which are quite unique, for example a color changing mug from AllDealsAsia (Singapore).
And even a cutie bear from Baguio Petals for dads!!!

Happy Dragon Boat Festival

Happy Dragon Boat Festival to all!

Today (6th June) is the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and it happens to be the replacement holiday of Agong's birthday for many people. Most of the Malaysians celebrating the festival would be at home enjoying the delicious dumpling. Yummy!

For some of you who don't know the origin of Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, it is a day to remember a great patriot in ancient China, Qu Yuan, who loves his country so much and committed suicide when his country fell apart. So, some people started to commemorate him by eating dumpling and some competing in dragon boat race.

But what means more to us is definitely the delicious dumplings! And many varieties of them! Other than preparing dumplings ourselves or getting help from our parents or relatives (Well, this is the easiest way), there are not many options left for us. Fortunately for people in China, Taiwan and some other countries that are already accustomed to group buying, it is not surprising they actually order their dumplings online from group buying sites!
In China, 85Cafe which featured dumplings deal in group buying sites sold over 10 thousands coupons in less than 2 days. Many outlets of 85Cafe even ran out of stock due to the incredible sales. Similarly, many group buying sites are also taking advantage of this holiday period to provide holiday packages, restaurant discounts and many other deals to attract more customers. We hope to see more great deals coming from the group buying sites so we get to enjoy more for less!

Well, for now, it's time to enjoy my next dumpling (Oouugh...)

How did the name "Dealshelve" came about?

JW came up with the idea of aggregating group buying sites so three of us got together and started to develop this site. First thing first, what should we name our site? Finding a suitable name which is not lame, available with domain name and acceptable by everyone wasn't an easy deal. A lot of brainstorming sessions were held but every time we discussed about the naming, it came to a dead end.

Interesting names that came up were dealsnetwork, dealspull, dealsradar, streetgrab, gooroops, deeyell... One day while imagining our site as a shelf that collects and stores the group buying deals, the name deal-shelf appeared. However, dealshelf.com is already taken (well, it's common that domain name with words in dictionary has been taken by someone though there's no real site for that domain). Shelf reminds me of p4 shelve, one of the command in Perforce, the favourite command in my favourite repository system. And the good news is the domain name dealshelve.com is still available!

It's not a great name, but it isn't lame and dealshelve.com is available. Literally, shelve means to put on a shelf or arrange on shelves. Cool, it describes the function of our site perfectly. So, nobody objected and we agreed to use this name until we came up with a really impressive one... But at the end we didn't came up with any name that is better than dealshelve.com. (I wonder how long it took AD to name his son Julian?)

So, that's how dealshelve.com came about. We hope that people like the name, or at least not hate it. By the way, do pronounce the name correctly, it's "deal-shelve", not "dell-shell" or "deal-chef"... (oh wait, dealchef seems to be a good name too!)

Dealshelve.com, bringing all deals together

Malaysia's leading group buying deals aggregator (or deals portal) dealshelve.com is now in alpha release. Group buying is one of the hottest online purchase phenomenon started at the second half of 2010. Group buying gives you the ability to purchase a product or service at a significantly discounted price when there is a guaranteed number of people committing to the same deal. It creates a win-win-win situation for the merchants, consumers and the deals websites.

Dealshelve aggregates daily deals from Malaysia's group buying websites and host them in one place. All deals are aggregated from Malaysia's most popular daily deals sites including GroupsMore, MyDeal, MilkADeal, Dealmates, Everyday etc. and also from the new comer sites! It is estimated that Malaysia has at least one new group buying site being created in the first half of 2011. Dealshelve enables users to easily navigate and filter out deals from these websites.

A preliminary release of Android App from Dealshelve is also available from Android Market for free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dealshelve