New Delhi :  TimesDeal.com, the group buying portal from Times Internet, will begin offering its deals free of cost. TimesDeal has traditionally charged users for 20-40% of the deal value upfront.

With this move, TimesDeal.com is taking an aggressive step and is disrupting its business model. TimesDeal has traditionally operated with a similar revenue model to competitors such as Snapdeal, who charge an upfront amount to purchase a deal. TimesDeal will no longer charge consumers for its deals.

TimesDeal made this decision after some learnings, some purposeful and some accidental. In February, TimesDeal ran a Valentine’s Day promotion and for the promotion all deals were made free. As a result, there was a 10 times increase in consumption. This drove the internal conviction for a free product.

Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet says, “After the Valentine’s Day’s free promotion, we knew we had tapped into some significant, latent demand in the market for free deals. We started working on the free product immediately after that. Last week, a promotional code was accidentally released and it spread on the Internet.  TimesDeal experienced over 100,000 transactions , a dramatic increase in deal consumption before the code was withdrawn. While TimesDeal lost revenues from the mistake, it helped further validate our belief in a free deals platform just as we were about to launch it. ”

TimesDeal is overhauling its user interface to focus more intensely on the discovery of deals, which will make the process of consuming a deal faster and simpler and also allow users to avail more targeted and personalized options of their interest.

TimesDeal.com is a unique platform for local merchants and merchants across the country to promote exciting consumer offers and help merchants connect with interested, new customers. It has a strong base of 10,000 participating merchants from nine cities and from various industries such as food and beverages, beauty services, entertainment, health and fitness, and travel. TimesDeal is a business unit of Times Internet Limited.