Kenya’s Campus Discounts, has launched out of private beta to become the global social platform where university students receive, view and share product discounts posted by businesses located around their campuses.
The site aims to allow businesses post discounts tagging up to ten campuses within their area of operation so students can view these discounts, buy them and recommend them to their peers.
“Students are a vibrant group of people who operate on a rather tight budget and therefore are always on the lookout for ways to save money. On the other hand, businesses offer discounts as a part of their marketing strategies. There lacks a proper platform where businesses can easily post these discounts for students to view and share, Campus Discounts was built to address this need”, said Mr. Don Omondi, CEO and Co-founder.
A quick browse through shows a modern web 2.0 application that takes full advantage of recent technological advances to include catchy animations producing a truly memorable experience.
“Internet speeds are improving each day so are web browsers and the processing power of electronic devices. For us, this means we can strive to give our users the best interface possible to make our service really easy and enjoyable to use. However, we also consider the increased use of mobile devices so we ensure our pages are lightweight with an average page fully loading under 2 seconds”, added Mr. Omondi who also doubles up as the company CTO.
The platform also has a mobile application for android powered devices that can be downloaded from Google Play with IOS, Windows and Blackberry compatible apps under development.
Upon visiting the site, one selects their campus from a dropdown select list and is redirected to their respective campus page where they can scroll through an assortment of posted discounts. Clicking on one directs you to its discount page where it contains options for logged in users to perform such as recommending them to friends, commenting, liking and reporting.
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“This social platform allows students to like and recommend businesses and discounts to their friends as well as share them on different social media. They can also contact businesses through direct messaging and conduct detailed searches for discounts, businesses and users. In addition, users on our mobile app receive instant updates on discounts posted by businesses they follow. It really is the most convenient way to keep students in the loop whenever irresistible offers are made for products they seek, saving them tons of much needed money in the process”, added Naomi Wambui, fellow Co-founder and COO.
To post a discount on Campus Discounts, one has to register first and create a business page both of which are free and easy to do. A page contains a logo, business description, contacts and a products slideshow. One can add friends to help manage the page. After creating a page, a manager needs to purchase a subscription to post discounts tagging up to 10 campuses of their choice. They do offer free subscriptions for the first three months after page creation.
“We keep things simple with only one subscription package which is very affordable translating to just Kshs. 33 a day and gives businesses the platform to frequently and directly reach out to tens of thousands of students daily. It is far cheaper than traditional media yet effective, a perfect marketing solution for SME’s. Furthermore, we have one fixed slot on each campus page that we sell as advertising space to one company per country. This is suitable for large companies whose operations span across a whole country such as telecoms and banks. With this they can alert all university students in a country of a new product or pricing and quickly build upon their student clientele”, added Mr. Omondi.
Campus Discounts is already a hit with early users, with several businesses pages created. Many students have registered too and the young company seems to be taking off quite well according to the CEO, “Since launch, we’ve had daily new registrations in the double digits and a lot of positive feedback for our simple yet appealing platform. We have even had a few calls from investors so I guess we are headed in the right direction”.
