Will Rebranding SoSasta As Crazeal Help Groupon in India?

According to a report on Fusible, Groupon India is trying its best to turn around its fortunes by creating a new group-buy site called Crazeal. The site, which can be seen live (a tad earlier than Groupon wanted), sports the same look as SoSasta, the current site of Groupon in India.

Why this rebranding?

There has been a spate of incidents around Groupon India, which has tarnished its image amongst the customers and has led it to lose hold of the market somewhat:

• SoSasta’s User Data Was Compromised – Groupon India’s SoSasta was apparently hacked and its user data was posted online. Many users (including me) received an email from Groupon India asking users to change the password of their SoSasta profile – but that was a password phishing attack. It definitely had a negative impact on the mindset of consumers, many of whom saw their data being published online as a violation of privacy, and an indication of lax security on Groupon’s part.
• SoSasta’s Founding Team Resigned – The founders Ananya Babna and Udayan Babna were reported to have resigned from the board after being asked to do so. This brought a new man to the helm, Ankur Warikoo, previously a consultant at Groupon India, who now sits in the CEO’s chair. The rebranding exercise, with Crazeal as Groupon India’s new avatar, could very well be his idea.
• Groupon India’s business was falling – Snapdeal, Dealsandyou, and Mydala are the current top-rankers in the Indian deal-buying space, and SoSasta is languishing in fourth place according to a study by comScore. With a new name and new management Groupon India aspires to get back in the race again. The one thing I fear though is that even this rebranding exercise might not help much due to a flood of group-buying sites in India. The leaders have already forged ahead, and it will require something unique on Groupon India’s part to pull in customers who may already have their eyes fixed elsewhere.

Groupon is also having a rough time in Chinese waters, and could probably use a rebranding there too. Taking the Groupon premonitions of doom even further is Rob Wheeler in a post on the Harvard Business Review’s blog. He makes two important arguments:

• Businesses should become profitable before they become big – Groupon did just the opposite, and ventured into foreign shores with investors’ money.
• Groupon does not have viable business model – Simply providing deals is not going to make you profitable, especially when you have competitors breathing down your neck with better deals. New ventures like Groupon Now also failed to make profit.

In fact, Rob mocks Groupon’s present condition by writing on their behalf:

Alright, you caught us. We’re actually not making any money. In fact, we are really losing a lot of money.

Still thinking whether the rebranding of SoSasta in Crazeal’s form will benefit Groupon a lot? We’re not so sure…