50%-70% OFF: RM50 Rakuten Cash Voucher for RM20

I like cash vouchers, don't you? Just don't be too restrictive with your offers, business owners.

At first, I find it silly that Rakuten should offer a cash voucher deal on Groupon when they are having sales. Why? You can't use these cash vouchers on sale items.

On second thoughts, they probably do this on purpose.

Now it's 50% off on ALL Rakuten items!

It's useful, come to think of it.

Are you a book lover? Now you can get Amy Tan's bestselling 'The Joy Luck Club' at RM17.45 after 50% off. (I'm just illustrating here so don't knock me off by saying you've read it ages ago. Me too. Only I didn't read the parts in the middle.) You can filter by the author. Smart.

(Don't you love getting books half off when they always give 10% to 15% off. Don't tell me otherwise.)

Fiction carries the most books. At over 100. Children's books come next at 75 books.

I think I got carried away. Here's why:

1. This voucher comes in denominations of RM50 each so you can only use it for a product that is at least RM55. (Filter on the left sidebar for items ranging RM55 to the limit you'd spend.)
2. You can only use 1 Groupon/product.
3. You can use it to cover shipping cost. (But I don't see how this matter, considering the above two restrictions.)

 I love how you can drill down, and down some more.

However, there's room for improvement:

1. Let us 'add to wishlist' without having to click through the product.
2. Give us the option to browse through100 items at a time.
3. Why are the images so lo-res?
4. Let the filters we set (number of items and relevance/lowest price, etc.) remain even though we click to a different category, until we change it ourselves.

Take note from Zalora!

And other shopping portals can take note from Rakuten. Run a 50% - 70% off voucher deal on Groupon!



* Maybe I'm wrong. But I believe this is the first time an online shopping portal is running a cash voucher deal. I love how deal sites force merchants to think more innovatively and competitively!