Lapar.com held their first gathering in Bandung last Saturday June 25, 2011. Held at Rumah Makan Arum Manis – Cihampelas Bandung, it was attended by more than 300 people, not only users but also merchants.

Lapar.com becomes one of interesting daily deals service since it was launched because focusing on food merchants. They have plenty of active users, especially from Bandung. As Firman, founder Lapar.com, stated the reason they chose Bandung to held first gathering was based on the fact that the largest community of Lapar.com is in the city.

Other than daily deals, Lapar.com also provides facilities for community development by launching MakanPlus. Not only information, there’s also PejuangLapar (Hungry Warriors) community as part of Lapar.com.

The gathering was held to accommodate users and merchant so that they can meet and communicate with each other and create a big family of Lapar.com.

Competition in daily deals is tight, if we take a look at other case in other countries, we’ll hear complaints from merchants on discount system for their company, however on the other hand there are those who feel happy about it. I think this offline gathering can be another way to assess customers and merchants’ satisfaction.

The next problem is whether customers will stay loyal to this kind of service? Users come and go, they sometimes change services, this alone is a big challenge. Lapar is facing a basic question in this competition, whether they will still carry food daily deals niche or take other “area”? If so, it would be interesting to see existing brand power (Lapar – food daily deals) in customers’ eyes.

Below is our short interview (in Indonesian) with Firman Nurimansyah, founder of Lapar.com, on Lapar’s strategy by this gathering, routine gathering plans and other info.