SGPC’s GURU NANAK INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

Matunga (E), Mumbai – 400 019

Summer Internship Project Report Titled

“Online Discount Coupon Promotion and Repurchasing Behavior”

In the partial fulfilment of the Degree of

MMS

By

Mr. Abhishek Vishwakarma

(MMS & Roll No: B-46)

Semester III & Specialization: Marketing

Batch: 2017-19
Under the Guidance of

Mr. Yash Shah

Business Development manager
Prof. Jyotinder K
(Project Guide)
2018-19
 SGPC’s GURU NANAK INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
Matunga (E), Mumbai – 400 019

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. Abhishek Vishwakarma a student of Class: MMS Semester:

→ bearing Roll No. B-46 has successfully completed the project titled
“Online Discount Coupon Promotion and Repurchasing Behavior” in the
partial fulfilment of the Degree of MMS.

Place:

Date:

Name of the Project Guide: Prof. Jyotinder K

Signature of the Project Guide:

Signature Institutes Seal

(Dr. D.Y.Patil)
Director
 STUDENT DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the project titled “Online Discount Coupon Promotion
and Repurchasing Behavior” is my own work conducted under the
supervision of Prof. Jyotinder K

I further declare that no part in this project work has been plagiarized
without proper citations and has not formed the basis for the award of any
degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship previously.

Name of Student: Abhishek Vishwkarma

Signature of the Student:

 Acknowledgement

The internship opportunity I had with Massimo E-commerce Pvt. Ltd. (Wowffers.com) was
a great chance for learning and professional development. Therefore, I consider myself
as a very lucky individual as I was provided with an opportunity to be a part of it.

The purpose of this project is not whose name appears but to acknowledge
the value additions and contributions. Success can never be achieved
through individual effort but through guidance and teamwork.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my industry guide Yash Yash (Business
Development manager) and Shraddha Naik (Opreations manager) and my faculty
guide Prof. Jyotinder K who helped me to complete this challenging task.

I would like to thank all the concerned executives and staff members of
Massimo E-commerce Pvt. Ltd. (Wowffers.com) who acted as a constant
support for me and also helped by providing valuable insights.

I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents for their moral and
financial support in competition of this project. Last but not least I would like
to thank my friends for their valuable support during my summer internship.
 Table of Content

Sr. No. Topic Page No.

1 Executive Summary 1

2 Introduction to the Topic 2

3 Industry Overview 9

4 Company Overview 12

5 Project Details 19

6 Data Analysis & Data Interpretation 20

7 Finding 32

8 Recommendations 33

9 Key Learnings 34

10 Conclusion 35

11 Bibliography 36

12 Annexure 37
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Wowffers.com is a Mumbai based offline retail offers discovery platform collating the
most relevant and hand tested deals and discounts for our ‘offer loving’ users.

Being in existence for over a year now, we have garnered the below
market insights from our app and web platforms -

Traffic : 80% new visitors , 20% returning visitors

55% females , 45% males
30% - 40% increase in month on month visitors
Users range between 18yrs - 35 years followed by 35 years - 55 years

Newsletters : 2,00,000 organic user base

Deal Consumption : 10,000+ deals
Social Media: 9000 and increasing follower base across
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook handles.

Wowffers.com is a hyper-local eCommerce company based out of India. As a business,

it allows customers to discover, buy and save on merchants nearest to them.
Wowffers.com operates in all categories of stepping-out for the customer, comprising
Food & Beverage
Beauty & Wellness
Movies & Events
Things to do (Amusement parks etc)
Hotels
Local Shopping (Organized retail)
Wowffers.com has Ganesh Rai & Geeta Rawtani as the Cofounder & CEO.

Deal-of-the-day and social promotion websites commonly feature one online

coupon, or more, a day for each city it operates in, offering consumers
discounts for local merchants. Local merchants distribute their online
coupon on these websites - and to price discriminate, they can predetermine
the minimum online coupons to be sold. Subscribers of the websites are
notified by e-mail daily on the various online coupons that are offered that
day and thereafter, decides on whether or not to purchase the coupon.

1
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

Coupons have grown to be important promotional vehicles used today.

Traditionally, coupons have been distributed through printed offline channels,
such as newspapers or postal mails. Along with technological advances, the
Internet has emerged as a new method of coupon distribution. Now consumers
have the possibility to search for online coupons in the form of coupon codes.

Local merchants benefit from them as a marketing tool to attract customers, whilst deal
buyers (consumers) acquire products and services from these businesses and local
merchants at significant discounts (of as much as 80 %), which enables consumers low-
risk opportunities to try out new businesses. In fact, a recent study discovered that 32.5 of
Internet users had purchased a Wowffers deal. In other words, these online social
coupons have increasingly transformed into a popular shopping tool for consumers and
are simultaneously seen as an attractive customer acquisition tool for local businesses.

Generally, coupon promotions and consumer price promotions are often applied to
generate short-term sales increase, to increase customer traffic, to attract new customers
and lastly, to encourage repeat purchase of a product or service. Various marketers in
general view coupons as an effective promotional tool in generating short-term sales
increase and attracting new customers. Many researchers agree that discounted prices
and price promotions generally have an immediate positive effect on sales. However, what
about the repeat-purchasing effects of promotions? In fact, there are others who still
question the long-term effect of coupon promotion on repeat purchase. Some research
has described a promotion usage effect in which brand repurchase rates are affected
because a promotion was used to make a purchase.

As such, some research has also discovered that repeat purchase rates for brands
are lower following a promotional purchase than after a non-promotional transaction.

Also new e-commerce ventures would be distributing coupons to tap into this user
base whose buying behaviour is being impacted by couponing. Word of mouth
marketing of couponing is also catching up and hence the usages likely to grow.

2
Online Social Discount Coupons

Deal-of-the-day and social promotion websites commonly feature one online

coupon, or more, a day for each city it operates in, offering consumers
discounts for local merchants. Local merchants distribute their online
coupon on these websites - and to price discriminate, they can predetermine
the minimum online coupons to be sold. Subscribers of the websites are
notified by e-mail daily on the various online coupons that are offered that
day and thereafter, decides on whether or not to purchase the coupon.

Figure 1. How Online Discount Coupon works (own interpretation)

Online discount coupon is a relatively new phenomena and the pioneer of this industry,
Wowffers, launched its website at 3rd may 2016 and led to an influx of countless imitators.
In the Indian market, there are more or less 200 online discount coupon-websites currently
operating. Since Wowffers launch in India 2016, a number of similar websites have
emerged. The Indian market of online discount coupon is dominated by Wowffers and
Nearbuy, possessing 95 % of the market share together. Another big actor in the Indian
market is Nearbuy, also launched in 2010. These kind of online discount coupon websites
have brought attention from several advertisement channels in the newspapers and
publishing industries. Newspaper companies like The economics time launched their
online discount coupon sites in 2017, called dineout .

However, despite the numerous discount coupon websites that are present in this
industry, the most acknowledged website, with the largest market share is
evidently Nearbuy, having a dominant position and withholding a market share of
74 % in the Indian market. The company, Wowffers, which we have chosen to
focus on, launched in Mumbai India, May 2016. Wowffers have been operating in
Mumbai since july 2016. Wowffers serves more than 150 markets using collective
buying to get daily deals on goods and services from local merchants . The daily
deals are provided to consumers through a website (www.wowffers.com), and
their subscribers are informed by e-mail at a daily basis about what deals are
featured that day. The deals wowffers provides are substantially discounted,
usually at least 50 % and, in some cases, up to 90 %. Websites like Wowffers
benefit from this business model considering the local merchants have to pay
wowffers commission on the revenue generated from the redeemed coupons.

3
Relational and Transactional Customers

Generally, there are two categories of customers; they are either relational customers
or transactional customers. Relational customers incline to seek for long-term
suppliers of products and services whereas transactional customers primarily care
about the price and the terms. Vital factors for the relational customer are quality,
service level, relationships, trust and so forth. The typical behavior that signals a
relational customer is usually signals such as repeated purchase, increase usage,
word of mouth etc. Transactional customers, on the other hand, are constantly
scouting for the best prices and tend to treat even services as homogeneous
commodities. It is also implied that the stronger a relationship with a firm is, also
entails higher switching costs for the customer. Relational customers have the
tendency to require more in-depth introduction and try out to a new service or
product prior to making repeated purchases and visits.

The theoretical implication suggests that firms ought to adopt a true relational intent,
process and approach if it wants to attract relational customers. However, the relationship
has to be mutual – in other words, the customer should also be in a relational mode in
order for a relational customer relationship to be established. As Grönroos stipulates,
“Some customers may be more willing to accept a relational contact with a firm, whereas
others may want to have a transactional contact. Moreover, a person may in one situation
be interested in a relationship and in other situations not.

There are also some theoretical implications for the necessary conditions for
relationship marketing that Bolton & Bhattacharya (2000) accounts for. They
suggest that a relationship develops between a customer and an organization
when there exists mutual benefits from one or more exchanges.

For a profit-maximizing firm, the benefits of a relationship with end users arise from
the economics of retention, insulation from competition etc. However, from the
customer’s perspective, the benefits of a relationship with the organization include
customization and decreased costs due to efficiencies in dealing with known
suppliers, such as lower search costs and risk reduction. The discussions of the
necessary conditions for an exchange relationship to exist are factors such as
customization, customer intimacy, two- way interactions, extended time intervals etc.
They also discuss conditions for organizations and customers to engage in order to
facilitate relationship marketing and behavior. Such conditions are product category
heterogeneity, perceived risk of the consumer, switching costs and so forth.

4
REFERENCE PRICE THEORY AND ADAPTATION-LEVEL THEORY

Reference price theory accounts for the belief that brand repurchase rates
will be lower subsequent to a price promotion. A price promotion might be
expected to lower the reference price of consumers, and when the promotion
is retracted, consumers will be reluctant to purchase the brand because the
price of the brand exceeds its reference price.

The basic foundation for this theory is that consumers use previous price levels and
other context variables for a product in order to form an internal “reference price”
that is used to judge the current actual product price level. Empirical models have
demonstrated that deviations between the actual price and the reference price of a
product convey utility and consequently influence consumer-purchasing behavior.

Initially, the fact that consumers form reference prices to judge actual
product price levels is an application of the psychological theory of
adaptation-level formation. Adaptation-level theory stipulates for the
notion that our perceptions of value and size (and other measurements
such as waiting time, quality etc.) changes based on past experiences.

The individual’s reference point for judgments and evaluations regarding classes
of stimuli is determined by the individual’s prior exposure and recollections of
previous judgments to the specific stimuli. In other words, the adaptation-level
theory specifies that an individual’s evaluation of an outcome serves as a
function of previously experienced outcomes such that the subjective judgments
are influenced by the prevailing norm or adaptation level.

5
Self-perception Theory

The self-perception theory states that as individuals purchases promoted

products and services on deals, they are unable to evaluate whether to attribute
their purchase behavior to a liking of the brand and products (this denoted as
an “internal cause”) or to the presence and advantage of the promotion and
discount, merely as a desire to take advantage and benefit of the incentive (in
this case, a promotion or deal, this denoted as “external cause”). After the
promotion and discounted price is withdrawn, and prices return to their original
state, there is a reduced probability that consumers who purchased the product
or service on “deal” will commit a repurchase. By retracting an incentive
(cause) reduces the likelihood of repurchase since an important reason and
motivation for the previous behavior (purchase of the product/service) has
diminished and is no longer present. (Dodson, Tybout & Sternthal, 1978)

Cognitive Dissonance

Utilizing the dissonance theory, Doob, Carlsmith, Freedman, Lan-dauer, and Soleng
(1969) hypothesized and discovered that a product or service introduced at a special
discounted price (at promotion) led to lower repeat purchase rates and sales in the long
run than the same product introduced at a higher price. The authors based their
speculations on the fundamental theory of cognitive dissonance, specifying that the
more effort a person needs to exert to attain a goal, the more dissonance is awakened if
the goal is less valuable than expected. In other words, the greater the effort of attaining
something (harder to get), the more an individual is interested in it. Hence, the theory
posits that a lower price (when introduced) increases the amount of dissonance that
consumers must resolve and consequently, leads to a more thorough and vigilant
evaluation of the product. (Doob et al., 1969)

6
Conceptual Framework

Since we were interested in observing the determinants of consumers’

repeat purchase behavior, we felt the necessity to take a look at the types of
consumers in general and the general theory of consumer behavior.

Firstly, by incorporating the theory of relational and transactional customers, we sought

to understand whether if subscribers of these deal-of-the-day websites are merely one-
time buyers or if they are willing to repurchase with the company from which they have
bought a coupon from. Thus, relating the theory to this case study – online discount
websites could be a way for the consumer to be introduced to a new service and not
merely for the benefits of deep discounts – being the relationship customer. Conversely,
is it comprised mainly of transactional customers, who only transact with these firms
merely for the deep discounts? Henceforth, based on this assumption, we have
developed the first hypothesis as follows:

7
→ H1: The customer base of online discount coupons is mainly
transactional customers and thus primarily treats price as a main factor.

Secondly, applying the Reference Price Theory and Adaptation-Level Theory, we

were able to see if customers are referring to the discounted price as a starting
(basic) price. The results may show that customers are not willing to make a
repurchase because they might assume that the original (regular) price for the
product/service is overestimated comparing to the price of product/service that was
acquired with the discounted coupon. Based on this theory, we aimed to compare
and understand how a consumer’s judgment is influenced by his or her prior
exposures to related stimuli (in this case, past purchases with the Wowffers
promotion at a discounted price) in order to describe their future judgments and
evaluations of repeated purchase at full regular price (post discount).

→ H2: The customers are not likely to repurchase because the

regular price is perceived as high in relation to the reference price.

Along with the self-perception theory, we aimed to examine whether consumers

purchase promoted products/services because they generally like the brand (internal
cause) or because of the benefit they receive from a discount price (external cause). In
other words, whether or not the discounted price acts as the primary incentive for
purchase and consequently, a revisit/repurchase. This enabled us to understand the
relationship between consumers’ buying and repeated purchase behavior of online
discounted products. Thus, our third hypothesis goes as follows:

→ H3: Customers are more likely to repurchase at the local merchant

if they receive another discount.

Lastly, since Cognitive Dissonance accounts for the perception of different

discounted values, such that a bigger gap between the original price and
discounted price results towards a lower likeliness of repurchasing. Hence,
we concluded our last hypothesis as follows:

8
 CHAPTER 2

INDUSTRY OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION:
In recent years, a variety of websites providing online discount coupons for
diverse services and products, such as restaurant visits, hotels, massages,
haircuts etc. on a daily basis, have been established in india. Examples of
such websites on the Indian market are Wowffers, Near Buy, Gruppi, and
coupon dunia. These websites have been categorized as deal of the day-,
group-buying, and social promotion websites by academics.

The info graphic gives an insight about the evolving coupons

industry, behavioral pattern of shoppers in India.
As the people are becoming habitual of frequent usage of shopping and
coupons in a gradual way, a constant development in coupon industry can be
witnessed. There are different coupon websites for the benefit of shoppers. The
continuous market growth is another proof of the upsurge in the coupon
industry. Coupon consumption is the highest in case of Restaurant, Spa &
salon, Gym, scheduling and executing travel plans, purchasing fashion
apparels and electronics online. Total shoppers: 39 Million
Online shoppers searched coupons and deals: 37.05 Million
The coupon business is 13.5 per cent of the total e-commerce audience in
India Growing at the rate of 62.9 per cent with 7.6 million unique users a
month Coupon websites pull up to 40% of the traffic to retailers’s website.

Market Growth:

9
Market Size:

According to Google reports, coupon industry in India has grown 20

times since January 2009 with December 2014 being the peak of this
trend. No wonder that in recent months, we estimate that on an
average 200 new coupon websites go live in India.

10
The coupon industry in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate
expected to be at 57% between 2014 and 2018 as compared to a meager 3.6 percent
increase in the Indian coupon market. But it doesn’t imply that coupon industry is
anywhere less in The States. Some of the worldwide famous coupon website come
from the INDIA like Nearbuy.com, coupon dunia, etigo, little app, Dineout etc.

11
 CHAPTER 3

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Massimo Ventures Private Limited is a Private incorporated on 03 May 2016.

It is classified as Non-govt company and is registered at Registrar of
Companies, Mumbai. Its authorized share capital is Rs. 1,000,000 and its
paid up capital is Rs. 750,000.It is inolved in Business activities n.e.c.

Massimo Ventures Private Limited's Annual General Meeting (AGM) was last
held on 30 September 2017 and as per records from Ministry of Corporate
Affairs (MCA), its balance sheet was last filed on 31 March 2017.

Directors of Massimo Ventures Private Limited are Ganesh Rai and

Geeta Raju Rawtani.

On the other hand, specialized (vertical focused) stores that sell only one or
two categories like books or designer wear, have lower redemption rates
because of their positioning as specialized stores where you get the best in the
segment at the most affordable price. They also distribute fewer coupons.
Coupon aggregators run on an affiliate model. The sites get paid from eCommerce sites.
E-commerce companies have their terms and conditions mostly revolving around non-
usage of branded keywords in SEM and others. Some of the e-commerce website work
on affiliate model, some don’t (for example Homeshop18 and eBay).
Some industry experts have the view that couponing space has become
overcrowded. However, according to a poll conducted outside shopping
malls reveals that under 10% of online shoppers are even aware right now
that they can find coupons by searching online or that coupon sites
existMassimo Ventures Private Limited is a Private incorporated on 03 May
2016. It is classified as Non-govt company and is registered at Registrar of
Companies, Mumbai. Its authorized share capital is Rs. 1,000,000 and its
paid up capital is Rs. 750,000.It is inolved in Business activities n.e.c.

Massimo Ventures Private Limited's Annual General Meeting (AGM) was last
held on 30 September 2017 and as per records from Ministry of Corporate
Affairs (MCA), its balance sheet was last filed on 31 March 2017.

Directors of Massimo Ventures Private Limited are Ganesh Rai and

Geeta Raju Rawtani.

12
Massimo Ventures Private Limited's Corporate Identification Number
is (CIN) U74999MH2016PTC280582 and its registration number is
280582Current status of Massimo Ventures Private Limited is -
Active. seems to be the major concern for coupon aggregators.
Innovations appear to be limited in this space and existing coupon aggregation
space need to evolve in order to survive. Aggregators need to make this
business balanced for consumers and e-commerce stores. The focus should be
on facilitating e-commerce and pass maximum benefits on consumers.

Company Details

CIN :U74999MH2016PTC280582
Company :MASSIMO VENTURES
Name PRIVATE LIMITED
Company
:Active
Status
RoC :RoC-Mumbai
Registration
:280582
Number
Company
:Company limited by Shares
Category
Company Sub
:Non-govt company
Category
Class of
:Private
Company
Date of
:03 May 2016
Incorporation
Age of
:2 years, 3 month
Company

13
Wowffers.com is a Mumbai based offline retail offers discovery platform collating
the most relevant and hand tested deals and discounts for our ‘offer loving’ users.

Being in existence for over a year now, we have garnered the below
market insights from our app and web platforms -

Traffic : 80% new visitors , 20% returning visitors

55% females , 45% males
30% - 40% increase in month on month visitors
Users range between 18yrs - 35 years followed by 35 years - 55 years

Newsletters : 2,00,000 organic user base

Deal Consumption : 10,000+ deals
Social Media: 9000 and increasing follower base across
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook handles.

Wowffers.com is a hyper-local eCommerce company based out of India. As a

business, it allows customers to discover, buy and save on merchants nearest to them.
Wowffers.com operates in all categories of stepping-out for the customer, comprising
Food & Beverage
Beauty & Wellness
Movies & Events
Things to do (Amusement parks etc)
Hotels
Local Shopping (Organized retail)
Wowffers.com has Ganesh Rai & Geeta Rawtani as the Cofounder & CEO.

14
Business Model:

wowffers.com does not charge anything from merchants for listing their
services on the platform. Once they list the services, consumers can get
the services of the merchants. After receiving the offers counsumer can
redeem the offers at merchant outlet, wowffers.com charge its
commission from merchant after the product or service is availed.
The commission is 15-16% at an average, and it ranges from 2% to
25% based on the merchant popularity and categories.

Buyers Demography:
Age Stats

15
 Gender Stats

Categories
wowffers.com operates in all categories of stepping-out for the customer, comprising
Food & Beverage
Restaurants
Pubs
QSRs (fast food)
Cafes
Beauty & Wellness
Spa
Salon
Gyms
Healthcare
Movies & Events

16
Things to do
Amusement & Water parks
Entertainment centers
Travel
City hotels
Local getaways
Local Shopping (Organized retail)

Sales

Travel
12% Food & beverage
Thnings to do

6% Food & beverage

Beauty & wellness
44%
Movie & event
23% Movie & event
Beauty &
Thnings to do
wellness
15% Travel
Local Shopping

17
Products sold on wowffers.com

wowffers.com lists everything that a merchant has to offer,

on its platform Prepaid offers
Limited menu offers with significant discounts
Prepaid (customer has to pay in advance)
Postpaid offers
Full menu offers with limited discounts
Postpaid (customer pays after availing the service)
Free deals
Customers do not have to pay anything to get these offers
Offline promotion:
Offline Activation (newspaper inserts and coupon distribution at events, marathons.
Colleges.
Banner placements and newsletter placements.
Exclusive brand page to list your offers.

18
 CHAPTER 4

PROJECT DETAILS

OBJECTIVES:
The main objective of the study is to understand the consumer
buying journey in Digital era.
To figure out how Indian will purchase a product.
To understand post purchase behaviour of Indian.
To know affinity in customers for collecting information before purchase.
LIMITATIONS:
The time span for the project is limited.
Sample size.
Time consuming.

METHODOLOGY TO BE USED:
For accomplishing this internship, I used two methodologies. One is
working as a Business development executive in Wowffers.com and
another one is a research to understanding the consumer buying
behaviour of Indians in digital era using an online questionnaire.

SOURCE/S OF DATA:

PRIMARY DATA:
Client’s interviews.
Consumer’s interviews.
Observation.

SOURCES OF SECONDARY DATA:

Wowffers.com
By going through various records of past.
Website of various coupon.

DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT:

Offline questionnaire.
Online questionnaire.
Client Observation.

19
 CHAPTER 5

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Research Design

Commonly, a research design aims and allows the researcher to draw inferences
concerning the causal relations among the variables that one has under investigation
. In order for us to describe and analyse our hypotheses, a research design guided us
with the process of collecting, analysing and interpreting our observations and study.

Generally, a descriptive survey enables the researcher to summarize and

organize data in an effective and meaningful way. They provide tools for
describing collections of statistical observations and reducing information
to an understandable form. This was applicable in our case, as we sought
to describe and analyze the characteristics of the customer in relation to an
online discount coupon and it’s repurchasing behavior.

By implementing the following research design, we were able to define the domain
of generalizability in the final step, and to conclude and summarize whether the
obtained interpretations can be generalized to the larger population, in our case
known as the online discount coupon users in Mumbai, India.

Deductive Approach

Since we sought to describe and analyze the promotional effects on customer retention,
we considered a deductive approach as the most representative method of ensuing our
study, where the theoretical framework (which formulated our conceptual framework
and hence our hypotheses) directed our intended study and survey regarding the
promotional effects of online discount coupons on consumers.

Additionally, with the help of the theories mentioned in the theoretical framework
that accounted for reasons that could (or not) influence the customer’s repurchase,

20
we were able to form our conceptual framework and hypotheses. Subsequently,
we created an online survey in order to address our hypotheses.

Through a deductive approach, we narrowed it down even further as we collected

our observations in order to address the hypotheses. Ultimately, this enabled us to
analyze the hypotheses with the collected data, where we were able to conclude a
support for the hypotheses and the factors that explained and contributed to
repurchase intentions and the customer’s perception after using discount coupons.

Survey Design

We chose to narrow our research and survey design further down to 4 factors;
price, service, quality and location, that could influence the likeliness of
repurchasing after redeeming an online discount coupon. We mainly chose to focus
on the first three; price, service and quality, due to them being highly stressed in
the relational and transactional theory . Furthermore, these 4 seem to be the most
involved and frequent factors concerning the case of online discount coupons.
Lastly, by narrowing down many possible factors into 4 main ones and hence out of
convenience, we were able to gather a more converged data for our analysis -
rather than having many dispersed opinions with numerous and different types of
variables, which might have led the results to be relatively uncertain.

The questions in our survey were structured as closed questions which limited our
respondents to a list of answer choices, mainly answers such as “Yes”, “No”, and
“Uncertain”. We also had closed questions which limited our respondents to
answer on a Likert-scale of a 1 – 5 scale. We considered closed questions to be of
the best suitable type of question for this quantitative study to utilize since it
enabled our statistical calculations more convenient to execute.

21
Data Description:

The first questions in the survey were formulated with the aim of characterizing and
describing the demographics (description) of our sample. 29 (25%) of our total
sample were male, the remaining – 90 respondents - were females. As shown in
Figure 5, none of our respondents were under 18 years of age. The age group 26-35
represented the highest percentage – 38%, while the two remaining categories (18-
25 and >35) were equal (31% each). The results concerning occupation of our
respondents are shown in Figure 6. The majority of the respondents were employed
– 55%, followed by students – 33%. The numbers of unemployed and
retired people were relatively low, though still present.

<18: 0 (0 %)
18-25: 38 (31 %)
26 – 35: 43 (38 %)
>35: 38 (31 %)

Figure 5. Age of Respondents from Survey

22
 Student: 39 (33 %)
Employed: 66 (55 %)
Unemployed: 10 (8 %)
Retired: 4 (4 %)

Figure 6. Occupation of Respondents from Survey

We divided the merchandises and services that are sold on Wowffersinto 4 main
categories: Restaurant & Café, Beauty & Healthcare, Products and Travel. On this
survey question, the respondents had an opportunity to choose from each category
that they had ever purchased from and hence, also had the possibility to choose from
more than one category, thereby reaching a total of 254 responses for this question as
demonstrated in Figure 7. The Beauty & Healthcare category represented the highest
purchase rate among the respondents, followed by the Restaurant & Café category,
Products and lastly, Travel.

23
We divided the merchandises and services that are sold on Wowffersinto 4 main
categories: Restaurant & Café, Beauty & Healthcare, Products and Travel. On this
survey question, the respondents had an opportunity to choose from each category
that they had ever purchased from and hence, also had the possibility to choose from
more than one category, thereby reaching a total of 254 responses for this question
as demonstrated in Figure 7. The Beauty & Healthcare category represented the
highest purchase rate among the respondents, followed by the Restaurant & Café
category, Products and lastly, Travel.

24
The following survey questions that accounted for the aforementioned assumptions
determine the probability of customers’ likeliness to purchase future deals on
Wowffers on a scale of 1 - 5, with 1 being “Unlikely” and 5 being “Likely”.

According to our survey more as “Likely” since it is close to 5. Thus,

we believe that the customers are merely loyal to these websites.

Another question we asked in the survey was if they subscribe to Wowffers newsletter,
“Yes” or “No”, and it turned out that out of total respondents 86.6 % said “Yes”.

This is a high percentage which allows us to once again assume that the
customers are loyal to Wowffers itself and not to the local businesses that are
presented on the online discount coupon websites. Wowffers provides, on a daily
basis, deals from local businesses and the results of question 8 from our survey
show that 87 % of our respondents have bought coupons for businesses that
they have never been to or heard about before. Such results may only strengthen
our assumption towards customers being relational to these discount websites.

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Thus, taking into account the local merchant’s interests and aspect, we want to stress
that companies who apply or intend to apply these online discount coupon websites
as a marketing tool, should be aware of the fact that the majority of these websites’
customer base are mainly interested in the benefits from discounts and promotions
and thereby, is more likely to conduct a single transaction with the local merchant.

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Less likely to Re-purchase after Discounted Prices:

Furthermore, as our second hypothesis endorsed, that online coupon users were
not likely to repurchase mainly due to price, was explained and validated by the
reference price theory. Having experienced a “heavy” discounted price, the
consumer had created another price point that they referred to as “worth”. The
fact that the consumer no longer perceive repurchasing (at full price) as
“worthy”, enables us to support our aforementioned argument (regarding price
as an important factor) and additionally draw the assumption that the customers
do in fact care about the price. Implicatively, we perceive them as relational and
loyal customers to the discount websites and conversely have less intention
towards the local businesses actually presented on the websites.

Less likely to Re-purchase at Frequently Appeared Promotions

Additionally, something that might have affected the results regarding H2, may be the high
regularity of promotions. Since similar price and Wowffers promotions occur quite often
within industries and the fact that many local businesses has applied repeatedly online
discount promotions, consumers might have gotten used to these patterns and
regularities of promotions (that occur so often) and thereby do not see any need to go
back at “regular prices”. In other words, the consumers do not perceive it as “worthy” to
return at “full price” because they expect and are aware that within a certain amount of
time period, there will be another similar discount within the same industry (restaurants,
beauty, products etc.) or even from the same business.

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Q.1:

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 CHAPTER 6

FINDINGS

The increasing adoption of devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops,

and access to the Internet through broadband and 3G has contributed
to the rapid growth of the coupon industry.

Indian Market has witnessed a shift in trend from traditional retailing to organized

retailing to online retailing by the liberalizations on huge investments in online retail.

Indian Market with large population sizes and growing disposable incomes, offers a

profitable investment opportunity to the marketers across the world of investments.

With the continuous increase in competition retail outlets are looking for
different ways to promote their products and services and on the other
hand modern customers are looking for best deals. Woffers provides a
win- win opportunity for both i.e. to the customers and retail outlets.

Since Woffers deals with retail industry, it gives Woffers dual benefit
i.e. Retailers promote Woffers and Woffer does its own promotions.

According to the market the coupon industry is going faster compared to other
industry so there is higher chances of Wowffers to build a strong image in market.

Wowffers is doing online promotion and apart from online promotion

Wowffers came up with new market strategy to do offline promotions as well.

Since Wowffers is in to service industry it is very difficult to

maintain same standard of service.

It is difficult to get offers from the retailers as they have to

provide discount and pay commission and fees to Wowffers.

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 CHAPTER 7

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that to maintain a standard level of service Wowffers should keep a

track of the expired offers so that end consumer do not face any dissatisfaction and it
should also provide some ad on services so that the retailers are happy.

In service industry small things matter the most as all the competitors are
selling the similar or same service. Therefore, Wowfers should provide
tailor made add on services for customers that makes them feel special.

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 CHAPTER 8

KEY LEARNING

Team handling as I was handling a team of 3 people.

I polished my selling skills as I also used to do calling for hours

and go for clients meeting to convince and get them on board.

How to manage data so that I can track the follow ups

and future opportunities.

Had an access to handle the official Marketing email services of

Wowffers which helped me to learn how to send official mails.

How to attend meetings and try to get the client on board.

Total meeting attend: 52

No of Converted client:

23 Achieving Target on time.

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 CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

The organization follows the rules and regulation involved in the

Service providing industry.
Conclusively, having analyzed all our empirical findings from our online survey, we were
able to support all our hypotheses except for one. Being unable to support the first
hypothesis indicated that there exists a portion of relational customers in the context of
online discount coupons whom considers factors such as quality, price and service (for a
potential repurchase). As seen, the survey implemented in the chosen sample did not
support H1, however, the other findings demonstrated that this might have occurred as an
unsystematic result. Thus, the remaining results in accordance with the other three
hypotheses indicated that price and other forms of promotions and discounts were more
likely to influence a customer’s likelihood of repurchasing.

Therefore, we concluded that discount websites’ customer base do in fact care about
the price and thus attract transactional customers to the local merchant, but there is a
possibility for customers to become relational customers at the local merchant’s
given that the service and quality were to be satisfactory. Therefore, we have
examined that price levels remain as the main indicator and factor that would
increase the likelihood of customers repurchasing but factors such as quality and
service play a major and important role for the experience, impression and the overall
consideration of repurchasing. Nevertheless, we could exclude location as an
influential/important factor from the data of our results.

By observing our survey results and having analyzed the empirical findings
together with our theoretical and conceptual framework, we have concluded
that online discount coupon users are more or less specifically loyal to
Wowffers and discount websites in general rather than local businesses.

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 CHAPTER 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.wowffes.com
Set of instructions from coupon industry.

Beasley, M. F. & Shank, D. M. (1997). The Effect of Price Promotions on

Repeat Purchase Behavior. Journal of Promotion Management, 4(2),
103-118. Retrieved March 11, 2012

Jung, K. & Lee, B. Y. (2010). Online vs. Offline Coupon Redemption

Behaviors. International Business & Economics Research Journal.
9(12), 23-36. Retrieved June 11, 2012 from The Clute Institute.

https://ebusinessgroup.in/2015/11/09/online-coupon-industry-in-
india-consumer-behavior-market-overview/

https://startupwonders.com/witness-the-growth-of-coupon-industry-in-india/

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ANNEXURE

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