Ikoala

Ikoala is an Australian organisation. It commenced operating in 2009 as a classifieds site, and changed to a retail group buying website in 2010. ikOala operates predominantly in Australia, and offers products and services from a broad range of partners. Ikoala is an online retailer and deal of the day website that offers home delivered products and discounted gift certificates that May Be used at local, national and international partners.

History

Ikoala started operating in 2009 as a classifieds site, and changed to a retail group buying website in 2010. Ikoala is based in Sydney, and has customer reach encompassing all Australian capital cities, as well as regional/ rural areas. The idea for Ikoala was started in 2009 by two entrepreneurs, Sam Mehanna and Chris Wade. The idea subsequently appealed to Ben Shaw, who joined the Ikoala team in 2011.

The business commenced as a classified and advertisement site, and evolved into a deal website during the infancy stages of daily deals in Australia.

The name Ikoala is synonymous with Australia, and the company positions itself as a discount retail offering to the Australian population in general. Ikoala is credited with offering some of the first daily deals in Australia relating to holiday and travel offers. Ikoala’s first deal was a Thailand holiday, selling 300 in the first few hours, and establishing the business as a sound model.

Ikoala was also one of the first daily deal companies to provide dedicated kids and business related deals, as well as one of the first to sites to offer consumer goods in a deal format and fully embrace a predominantly product focused retail flash sale driven model. Ikoala promotes suppliers locally and abroad. The company offers a combination of in-house warehousing and dropshipping services.

As at October 2014, Ikoala reaches 500,000 subscribers daily. The predominant communication is through email, Facebook, Google and a partner network.

Business Model

Ikoala offers a range of discounted products daily in each of the markets it operates. There are 2 methods of redemption;

Method 1 is applicable to products and consumer goods, and operates predominantly as an online retail model, whereby the purchaser receives the goods via post or courier with no further redemption of their purchase voucher required.

Method 2 is applicable mainly to service and travel related offers. If a minimum volume of people subscribe for the offer, then the service becomes available to all; if the minimum volume is not met, the deal does not become active. Retailers can treat the vouchers as quantity discounts as well as marketing and promotion tools.

Unlike traditional advertising, the partner business does not pay any fees to participate in an Ikoala promotion. Ikoala collects various information from customers who have expressed an interest in receiving offers and then contacts only those customers, mainly by email.

Ikoala’s demographic profile is skewed towards female customers. Many of the deals are based around health, fashion well-being, beauty and fitness. Ikoala participates in various Daily Deal Aggregator websites. This allows them to improve their reach, acquire new traffic and improve sales and revenue.

Ikoala provides support to customers through telephone, live chat and email channels.

Ikoala adheres to Australia Consumer protection laws.

Postage

Most goods have delivery included, however there are exceptions. For example, various freebie offers, purchases of substantial or heavy items such as mattresses and wine attract a specific shipping cost. Each product details postage if applicable.

IkOala use Australia Post, Australian local courier and other companies for delivery.

Charities

IkOala helps Australian Koala Charities, and Australian Wildlife charities. This is to preserve the threatened Koala.