Rocket Internet is one of those companies that create a lot attention and there are mixed feelings about what they do. However, it is hard to argue with their success, as most of the companies that are a part of Rocket Internet are largely highly profitable.
In March of 2012, Rocket Internet toured the Nordics, putting together events with recruitment in mind. Today, they announced an expansion of their discount coupon site, CupoNation, into Finland. The premise behind it is simple, it lists discount vouchers from local and worldwide retailers in industries such as fashion, sports, electronics, travel, etc. The discounts are free to the consumers and you do not need to register to get them.
What this does, is basically incentivize companies to offer discounts, which should benefit the consumers in general as this basically moves down the price of products and services as more and more companies join CupoNation’s partner list. In Finland, they have partnered with the likes of Stockmann, Eckerö Lines, and Reima at launch.
We got in touch with the country manager for Finland, Arto Kallio. Kallio told ArcticStartup that the Nordic countries have not yet exceeded their potential for voucher shopping and that “in Finland there are only a few players, who provide vouchers. No one of them, however, provides a distinctive coupon portal with unique offers.” This raised the question as to whether the market for vouchers is in decline and if there will eventually be a bubble burst in the coupon/daily deal industry. To which Kallio commented: “discounts and vouchers will always play a factor to choose one product over another. This is nothing new. It has always worked throughout history and will also in future. Only because some players show signs of fatigue at the moment, it does not mean that the market is exceeded and has no space for something new.”
It will be interesting to see how much money Rocket Internet will devote towards the Nordic expansion and how this will influence the overall market. So far, they have invested over €8.4 million into CupoNation on a global scale, have entered the Swedish market last week and plan further expansions into Norway and Russia very soon. They are currently available in Brazil, India, Spain, Italy, Poland, France, Austria.
UPDATE: Cuponation was launched in Norway on the 30th of April, which now completes the expansion with them being present in Sweden, Norway and Finland.
