Real-time coupons for LBS services: Business needs to be sized

Article Description: real-time coupons are the gospel of the business or bad news?

From my office to the nearest KFC, there is a terminal that can help you print coupons, every time I want to buy a chicken roll or a cup of sundaes, will be on the way to print a few coupons, a two-minute time may help me save four or five yuan, considering that I have not minute millions of up and down, so do very accounting.

However, for the KFC, because of the existence of the self-service terminal, every time I spend they will earn a few dollars.

In this connection to the current LBS service began to scrape the real time coupon Wind: You go shopping to get hungry, casually walked into a restaurant, waiting to order the time to download coupons, and then light to the waiter--look! So save more than 10 bucks. In this process, the business because of the real time coupons will get what kind of benefits?

This goes back to one of the most fundamental questions: Why do marketers issue coupons (Coupon)?

It may not be the same as many people think, the original intention of the coupon is not advertising, but for price discrimination (prices discrimination)

Discrimination here refers to the price sensitivity of the consumer to the difference between pricing, in order to obtain the best interests.

For example, a chicken roll cost 5 yuan, suppose the price of 10 yuan may have 100 people to buy, priced 15 Yuan 60 people to buy, so the merchant will choose to price 15 yuan, such a profit is X (15-5) = 600 yuan, more than the price of 10 yuan when the profit of 500 yuan.

But the merchant is unwilling to let go of the other 40 people willing to buy chicken rolls 10 yuan, how to do it, is to issue coupons, each coupon can be cheap 5 yuan. Assuming that the other 40 people through the coupon consumption, then the final business profit for + + x 5 = 800 yuan.

Of course, this is the ideal situation, the reality is willing to pay 15 yuan to buy chicken rolls may still get coupons, but because this group of people themselves can accept the price of 15 yuan, will not struggle to obtain and custody coupons, nor in the absence of coupons when not to spend, Therefore, most of the time coupons can still play a role in distinguishing consumers.

However, in the internet age, especially in the mobile internet era, coupons have been given more marketing functions, from the perspective of marketing, naturally is the desire to be pervasive everywhere, and minimize the cost of promotion. But this is in contradiction with the purpose of price discrimination, which does not want to be able to facilitate preferential access to consumer groups that are not price-sensitive.

In the previous chicken roll example, imagine if anyone can pay in the time without the effort to take out 5 coupons, that actually means that the merchant can only be executed in accordance with the price of 10 yuan, lost 800–500 = 300 yuan profit.

Price discrimination has two important prerequisites: 1 can distinguish consumer group, 2 can carry out the custom price scheme, but the real time coupon but let these two premises are overturned.

So, real time coupons are really reactionary, should be in time to destroy it?

On the contrary, businesses should take stock of the situation, recognize the socialization of business behavior, localization, real-time (that is, SOLOMO representative of the connotation) trend has been unavoidable, and actively innovate, so that the new technology in their own initiative still.

For example, for real time coupons, I would like to offer two types of ideas:

1. Improve consumer access to coupons difficult, for example, within a business radius of 50 meters can not download the coupon immediately, that is, so real-time not so real-time;

2. Change the existing single form of coupons, such as the need to play a small game through the mobile phone, or to complete a simple question and answer, the game customs information as a preferential credential, in this process can also be implanted in the business brand or market information, increase user loyalty.