Group buy­ing rides In­ter­net boom: Mil­lions an­tic­i­pate and pur­chase MetroDeal’s of­fers

 The ro­bust growth of deal of­fers of a top web­site sell­ing a host of prod­ucts and ser­vices at hefty dis­counts in­di­cates the strong po­ten­tial for e-com­merce through In­ter­net group buy­ing in the Philip­pines.

From fea­tur­ing just over 800 deals in 2011, MetroDeal’s of­fers, which cover spa vis­its and buf­fets all the way to eye op­er­a­tions, amounted to more than 2,000 in 2012. In just two years, it also emerged as the coun­try’s 35th most vis­ited web­site, ac­cord­ing to "le#a.com -- ahead of that of a pop­u­lar bud­get air­line.

The Philip­pines’ po­ten­tial has much to do with its be­ing in a re­gion that has the high­est num­ber of In­ter­net users in the world. In 2010, Asia Pa­cific added 30 mil­lion new users to bring its to­tal to 534 mil­lion, the most of any re­gion, ac­cord­ing to In­ter­net mar­ket data provider comS­core. In 2010, In­ter­net users in­creased 16 per­cent in the Philip­pines, out­pac­ing the growth in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore. The Philip­pines is the top Face­book mar­ket in the world and among those with the high­est so­cial net­work pen­e­tra­tion rates in Asia.

It helps that MetroDeal, a ven­ture founded by a young Filipino-Aus­trian who be­gan his group buy­ing ca­reer in Europe, knows whom to tar­get Ð Filipino shop­pers who “value good deals.”

Barely two years in the busi­ness, MetroDeal has al­ready carved a niche ahead of its com­peti­tors who have been around ear­lier. It was the first to make break­through sales in beauty treat­ment and buf­fet deals.

Ralph Wun­sch, the 26-year old founder of MetroDeal, was born to an Aus­trian fa­ther and a Filipino mother work­ing as a nurse in one of Vi­enna’s old­est hos­pi­tals. Be­fore grad­u­a­tion, Wun­sch had al­ready earn­ing his stripes as mar­ket­ing man­ager of Daily Deal, a group buy­ing site in Aus­tria. By the time he fin­ished school, he was the firm’s key ac­count man­ager.

Wun­sch moved to Philip­pines in late 2010 and stayed with a rel­a­tive. At that time Filipinos had al­ready seen the ben­e­fits of group buy­ing, a scheme that al­lowed them to pur­chase vouch­ers to dine in fancy restau­rants, stay in ho­tels and get a spa mas­sage on huge dis­counts of up to 90 per­cent. Draw­ing from his ex­pe­ri­ence in Daily Deal in Aus­tria, Wun­sch drew up a plan for the MetroDeal site. Be­cause he had con­nec­tiv­ity prob­lems in his rel­a­tive’s home, he opted to make a nearby McDon­ald’s restau­rant with free wifi ser­vice his work­place. With just a lap­top to as­sist him, he ini­tially launched MetroDeal from one of the guest ta­bles of the fast­food out­fit.

For the next six months af­ter open­ing MetroDeal, Wun­sch was a one-man team. By end-2011, he had em­ployed 30 per­sons at the En­ter­prise Cen­ter along Ayala Ave., Makati City. By end 2012, his staff com­ple­ment had grown to 55.

Wun­sch at­tributes his success par­tic­u­larly with his mostly fe­male mar­ket to the in­sight that “van­ity sells.” The site also of­fers an ar­ray of beauty prod­ucts and treat­ments. More­over, it has many buf­fets, pizza and other food deals.

In ad­di­tion, the firm makes ex­ten­sive use of Face­book and Google ad­ver­tis­ing to reach overseas Filipino work­ers.

The young en­tre­pre­neur is quick to add that MetroDeal ben­e­fits both buy­ers and mer­chants. The deals of­fered by th­ese mer­chants are only for a lim­ited pe­riod and suc­ceed in driv­ing walk-ins to their stores as well as in in­creas­ing sales. One mer­chant of­fer­ing a buf­fet cruise deal sold over 40,000 vouch­ers in just 48 hours. MetroDeal’s cur­rent mer­chants in­clude Manila Ocean Park, Dermcare, Yoshi­noya, SM Skat­ing, SM Bowl­ing and SM Gamezone.

Wun­sch points out that MetroDeal is the only lo­cal group buy­ing site with a ded­i­cated call cen­ter manned by 25 agents who en­ter­tain calls from 6 a.m. to 12 mid­night daily. The firm seeks to at­tract a var­ied age group. With deals that ap­peal to younger age groups, its Face­book page num­bers more than 600,000 fans.