China All-out Groupon Wars

Groupon after somewhat rough entry into China market (contradicting Tibet advertisement, hiring first time laowai as their China boss and launching the site without the partners consent), finally launched their Chinese website in conjunction with Tencent. It's funny, in marketing there is one part where it is said (and proven) that once you have found a unique niche business, be careful of the followers. In order to "keep your head above the water" (or competition), you have to stay ahead and fast, as well as have the next phase of development. I guess this applies true in today's Internet business. Groupon although was the first to start in 2008, it was the last to enter China market which represents the biggest bulk portion of Internet citizens of the world.

Anyway, I spotted their online banner ads today and thought this might make an interesting blog post. According to Gang Lu from Technode, Groupon or 团购 in China is spending millions of RMB of ad budgets ranging from 50 million to 550 million. I'm looking at the main page of Gaopeng or Groupon (official) China page at around noon time, so far they are selling an RMB 155 deal and only 28 people have bought it just for Beijing market (Beijing is a city with population of 18 million people). I will post an update at the end of the day to see if their deal is successful or not, as there is peak season which is the morning before work and night after work (as companies have started blocking out Groupon sites).

The second interesting thing I thought is good for sharing is the ranking of Groupon sites in China by iResearch for January 2011 only, Gaopeng or Groupon (official) China being new is not in the game yet. Conclusions as follow:
  • Taobao groupon is leading in terms of how many people visited their site - total 75 million people total for January.
  • Meituan groupon is leading in terms of how long people spent on their site - average a month at 8:48 in January.
  • Also interesting to note that QQ has its own Groupon, which is largely and clearly under Tencent (wonder if this is conflict of interest).
  • Groupon.cn is not affiliated with the official Groupon, but the name's site (Groupon.cn and Groupon.com.cn) has been registered in China. Although it seems they affiliate themselves with the official Groupon.
I've also included several screenshot of other China Groupons main page.

(download)