A Quick Look on Growth of Indian Coupon Industry

Indian coupon industry has come a long way in a very short span of time. From near to zero in 2009 to about 15% of the total e-commerce market in India in 2016, this industry has seen some high competition and some great innovations.

This growth has not only given a boost to parent industry i.e. E-Commerce but also to its own allied services like ready to use coupon themes, affiliate networks, and tracking platforms etc. In fact, our service at LinkMyDeals is also highly encouraged with the development and growth of coupon industry. With our service, we aim to provide quality affiliate marketing tools which can give a head start to all our clients.

With rising competition has come a great deal of innovations, ranging from websites & tools like price comparison, cashback, browser extensions and exclusive codes to app-based technologies such as app aggregators. So in this post, we are going to have a quick look at some authentic figures.

Google Trend Graph

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. This in no ways is a hint of over-competition or saturation. Rather it only means that there is enough pasture (niches) in this market for everyone to graze (earn).

City wise interest in coupons


Note the growing interest in suburbs? This is exactly what we wanted to bring to light. Interest in shopping by using coupon codes has significantly risen over the years in suburbs. Possibly because of two reasons:

1. Most residential population stays there.
2. People in suburbs are more cost conscious.

Numbers in above charts show search interest relative to the highest point mentioned therein. For example, if at most 10% of searches in India and for time frame of 2004 to Present were for “coupon”, Google would consider this 100. This doesn’t convey absolute search volume in any ways.

Search Trends

Although generic terms like “coupons” and “promo code” still dominate the search trend, brand specific terms are on the rise. Top upcoming brands seem to be ola, dominos, freecharge, jabong and paytm.

Final Words

Coupon industry is heavily banking on growth in e-commerce segment. For now everything seems to be on track on the industry is all set to reach new heights. However with growth comes new threats, and hence industry as a whole must work forward to:

1. Reduce dependence on e-commerce growth.
2. Find more niches to recharge interest in coupons.
3. Work towards more innovations while playing fair.