Groupon had a press launch this morning and they basically made the formal shift from their “Beeconomic” branding to Groupon (Groupon acquired Beeconomic to establish presence in the Philippines). There are already several deals being offered for Metro Manila and one of them is a sweet deal for the iPad 16GB WiFi model. You can actually get it for just P21,590. There are also offers from a restaurant, spa, and Valentines chocolates.
I’m a bit stumped with their choice of URL’s though. They decided to retain beeconomoic.com.ph. Maybe it’s just temporary and they’ll eventually shift to groupon.ph or groupon.com.ph?
Here’s the official press release (It’s a bit long):
Groupon Philippines
For Immediate ReleaseWhoever said, “You can’t have it all,” definitely has not been stung by the Queen Bee. Other group buying sites in the Philippines are a lot like wasps: They pop up unexpectedly from out of the bushes and ambush you into subscribing for great deals, end up being a nuisance with the ruckus they make in your inbox once you’ve subscribed, and tend to go into a stinging frenzy and lash out once you buy a coupon and try to redeem it. Get with the pioneer site with the Sweetest Deals and top‐notch customer service in the country today: Groupon Philippines!
With the emergence of e‐commerce worldwide, Groupon has definitely created a buzz in the online culture by introducing an ingenious concept called “collective buying,” wherein the website offers users huge discounts and buyers band together to purchase an item. The three‐ year old company follows the philosophy of, “Treating customers the way we like to be treated,” as the website offers stuff they themselves buy, matched with unbelievably good customer service. The site lets city dwellers try something cool every day without having a hard time choosing what to taste, do, and try, as it offers at least one deal per day. According to Forbes Magazine, Groupon is growing faster than Google, Amazon, EBay and Yahoo!Attracted by this stellar idea, trader Karl Chong, together with his brother Christopher, adapted the idea in Singapore with their own deal‐of‐the‐day website, Beeconomic. Since its conception and launch in May 2010, the brothers have since made millions, sold 16,000 coupons, signed up 100 merchants and has acquired 20,000 subscribers, a far cry from their initial US$50,000 investment. Beeconomic has also been awarded the Site of the Week by Today, a Singaporean online and print newspaper and 8 Days, a Singaporean Magazine. Beeconomic even earned recognition in a keynote speech given by Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, saying that Beeconomic is, “An excellent example of an innovative business model.”
Karl then approached Bliss Spa and then Southeast Asia Head, Lori Villafuerte. She liked the idea so much that the ex‐Beeconomic merchant partnered up with Karl and took Beeconomic to the Philippines, where she became the co‐founder and Queen Bee when it started in November 2010. In that same month, the group‐buying website, Groupon, acquired Beeconomic.
Groupon took Beeconomic under its wing, following plans of expanding in the Asian region. The acquisition of Singapore and the Philippines’ top group‐buying company came after Groupon acquired two other deal‐of the‐day sites: Hong Kong’s uBuyiBuy and Taiwan’s Atlastpost.
Beeconomic Philippines was acquired by Groupon on December 1, 2010, and will be officially bee shedding their Beeconomic skin and putting on the green Groupon suit on February 9, 2011.Since the happy swarm of busy bees made its way to Philippine shores, Groupon Philippines, formerly Beeconomic, is changing today’s local online shopping culture. Lori Villafuerte, President of Groupon
Philippines says, “Groupon is the pioneer company – the company that came up with the tag line: collective buying. For our subscribers, we work as a city guide, offering a variety of different deals to satisfy all markets with a mix of good quality brands and irresistible sweet deals for them to choose from.” She continues, “We are here to revolutionize the way people shop and at the same time, educate people in this emerging market. Our vision is for people get their ‘group‐on’ all day, every day; same as how they constantly check their Face book all throughout the day.”Groupon Philippines, formerly Beeconomic, offers a deal for subscribers to seize, but only if a minimum number of people sign up for the same deal within 24 hours. Subscribers get deals via their e‐mail, Face book, and Twitter daily feeds. Subscribers who want the offer then pass the deal along to their friends via e‐mail or by broadcasting it on social networks. If the targeted number of people buy the deals before the 24‐hour period expires, everybody who bought the offer get to redeem the deal. Subscribers who get a friend to sign‐up and purchase in the website get P150 worth of credit which they can use to purchase any Groupon Philippine deals.
Since its acquisition in December, Groupon Philippines has gained a loyal following of 200,000 bee‐fans and growing. “Groupon Philippines is in for tremendous growth, coming up with more bigger and better deals. In the next quarter we will also bee branching out with deals for Cebu, Davao, Camarines Sur, Boracay, and more,” shares the company’s Queen Bee. What makes Groupon Philippines stand out from the local competition aside from being the pioneer is the sheer number of opt in, engaged subscribers that go to the site to register, including over 17,000 + Facebook fans and growing.
Like their mascot, Buzzter the bee, the people behind Groupon Philippines, formerly Beeconomic, don’t take themselves too seriously, but take what they do very seriously. Locally, online buyers are getting hooked on beeconomic.com.ph after scoring top‐of‐the‐line deals from a wide range of merchants: Melo’s, P&P Tattoo, Mile‐Hi Diner, Cocomo Beachwear, Republic, My Personal Farmer and Pole Dancing Academy Philippines, and other deals from the most happening products and services in the islands. Groupon Philippines is also exclusive partners with ABS CBN publications. Global partners include Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Hilton, Starbucks, The Body Shop, The Gap, Fridays, Gold’s Gym and VISA to name a few.
If your bee‐sense is tingling, experience one‐of‐a‐kind shopping with Groupon Philippines! Visit www.beeconomic.com.ph to learn how you can score the sweetest deals in bee‐land.
The claim that they have 200,000 followers sounds a bit exaggerated, given how their deals have been faring on the site (hardly any volume).
Let’s see how Beeconomic Philippines will do now that they have the backing of the #1 group buying site. They may call the competition wasps but it seems they have a lot of catching up to do with the industry’s current leaders Ensogo, Deal Grocer and Cashcash Pinoy.
yes interesting how 200,000 subscribers converts to 40 sales for the Robot Restaurant? can someone compute that conversion rate? My calculator just said ZERO
they said theyre getting the groupon.com.ph domain name but in the mean time beeconomic.com.ph
JC, that’s true, wonder what they mean with 200,000. i would also say that http://www.metrodeal.com is also one of the current industry leaders, their splash island deal that expires today sold already over 2000 times and in general most of their deals sell 500-1500 times. they’ve just started like 3-4 weeks ago.
good luck to groupon. but yeah, in the end, the consumer wins. just bought their ipad deal.
You should also check out http://www.pakyaw.com.ph
“They pop up unexpectedly from out of the bushes and ambush you into subscribing for great deals, end up being a nuisance with the ruckus they make in your inbox once you’ve subscribed, and tend to go into a stinging frenzy and lash out once you buy a coupon and try to redeem it.”
Hmm, a blind generalization of group buying companies that have beaten them to the punch?
It’s kind of arrogant for them to say this, esp since they only started in The Philippines November 2010.
I guess they walk with a swagger now that they’re riding on the coattails of Groupon’s big money (Beeconomic sold for $24M).
It’s the DEALS (both quality and quantity) that speaks volumes (not empty claims of ’200,000′ subscribers) – and so far, Groupon Ph hasn’t really delivered. I expected a bigger bang on the day of their media launch.
Agree Renz. The Beeconomic people have quite a big mouth for the fact that they’re currently among the smallest players in the market. Did you already type in for example “cashcashpinoy” or “dealgrocer” or “metrodeal” into google search? these fine people from groupon / beeconomic even use these businesses’ names to advertise. so much about fair competition, for me personally, they seem like a pretty arrogant company, this is not the groupon i know from the states.
Totally agree… I think its unfair for groupon to use other business names for their ads. I just tried searching for Ensogo, and a groupon ad came out http://awesomescreenshot.com/0cb7crn0e
Even metrodeal has been doing this but they lately removed their ads. They tweeked it a little bit but still very sneaky… title is “Get your Group On”
http://awesomescreenshot.com/0047cs102
its all about perception
well, it has become official then, groupon philippines suck, long live ensogo, deal grocer, metrodeal and cashcashpinoy
4 full days later and Groupon Ph can’t even sell 100 Robot coupons to its “200,000 users”. That is truly, truly sad. And they continue to roll out uninteresting deals like that Bed Party one.
U R SO RIGHT GROUPON SUCKS . ( NOT THE DEALS THOUGH BUT THE SYSTEM )