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Bulgarian Car Dealership Offers SUV Half Off on Collective Shopping Site


A collective shopping site has been used for an innovative offer by Ratola, a Bulgarian car dealership group, for a "
SUV at Half Price"
, with marketing funds being allocated as product discounts.

Ratola's offer for an "
SUV half off"
has been published on Bulgarian collective shopping platform Grabo.bg.

The Bulgarian dealership said their offer is "
absolutely unique as for the first time in the history of collective shopping a new vehicle is offered for half of its regular price."


This is made possible by the decision of Ratola's marketing department to transform its advertising budget into price discounts as a gift to its customers for the upcoming holidays.

A drive to stimulate business and promote its activity through discounts is the major principle in the work of Grabo.bg, so the website and the car dealer naturally have synchronized their strategies to propose the biggest discount in the history of the collective shopping in Bulgaria, the company said.

"
We decided to use a collective shopping site as mediator for our marketing campaign because it is something trendy,"
explained Vassil Baroff, CEO of Ratola Group. "
We are taking a risk, but we hope it will work out. There has already been enormous interest, but it's too early to assess the final results."


According to the website's counter, 51 vouchers have been sold to date and the deal is still in progress.

Baroff has emphasized that the idea to channel funds slated for advertising into offering unprecedentedly high discounts through a collective shopping site belongs solely to Ratola Group.

"
As far as I know, our offer is a precedent in the entire history of collective shopping. The closest similar offer that I have heard of was made by Groupon in the USA where a USD 100 voucher provided a discount of USD 300 in the purchase of a vehicle,"
he said.

In his words, the "
SUV at Half Price"
campaign was facilitated by additional marketing support from the producer that his company decided to spend in a non-traditional way.

To take advantage of the "
SUV at Half Price"
offer, the customers have to purchase a BGN 500 (EUR 255) voucher from Grabo.bg, which entitles them to buy one of the cars on offer with a discount of between 20% and 53%. The offer is valid for new Korean made SUVs of the "
Ssang Yong"
brand and also for all available used cars at Ratola's dealerships, regardless of make and model.

The SUVs from Ratola's "
car outlet"
, such as Actyon and Kyron, are offered with the biggest discounts of between 35% and 53%. The voucher even provides a rebate for the recently launched 2012 models, which usually are not offered at a discounted price.

For example, the company's flagship Rexton is offered with an up to 30% discount and even the brand new Korando SUV, equipped with automatic transmission, which hit the market in September 2011, can be bought with a special collective rebate of BGN 6 000 (EUR 3 060). The greatest discount for purchasing an SUV with a voucher from Grabo.bg is BGN 26 100 (EUR 13 320) in the class of compact crossovers (Actyon), and BGN 30 520 (EUR 15 580) in the class of medium-size SUVs (Kyron). The voucher is fully refundable if the customer decides to cancel the deal by noon on December 28.

Ratola Group has been on the market for more than 20 years, and is operative in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo.