Digital trend of business have totally changed the perspective of customers about buying anything. Several online E-commerce sites we see today and it is quit beneficial for customers because they can compare prices of any product on different sites. But it is very complicated to visit lots of online sites. Idealo is among online platform where customers can easily compare the prices of products. DT spoke with Mr. Bennet Goerlitz, Head & Country Manager, India, idealo International to know all the details about their business operations and the current e-commerce market in India.
DT: How do you see the future of e-commerce market in India? Do you think after GST, online marketplace will grow better?
Mr. Bennet: Online shopping has been growing steadily in popularity over the last decade in India, and the trend is likely to continue. Many consumers now use the internet to find great deals and offers to seek out prices that beat in-store offers. Growing internet penetration and mobile usage is the driving force behind this adoption. This mass-growth also rides on industry competiveness. E-commerce sites in India are all playing in a harshly competitively landscape, which is a simmering growth atmosphere. A recent Gartner report estimated that e-commerce in India is expected to grow at the rate of 60 to 70 per cent year-on-year and so we identify a similar trend.
GST, one of the biggest tax reforms in the history of independent India is expected to create a conducive and favorable business atmosphere for almost all industry sectors in the long run. Slated for roll out on 1st July, GST will foster the ease of doing business, movement of goods and will be a big push for warehouses. With efficient compliance systems put in place, e-commerce industry in India will hugely benefit from this new system of tax reforms.
DT: How do you see the journey of Idealo since its inception in year 2014? How much customer base do you have across Indian market?
Mr. Bennet: idealo forayed into the Indian market in 2014 and the journey since has been steady and strong. We attract over ten million monthly users and 1.5 million visitors per day across all our portals and compare 29.9 million offers from 5,100 shops. In India, we workin direct partnership with Amazon, Flipkart and Ebay. We also works with three affiliates – OMG Media, V Commission and icubeswire. Other big shops that idealo works with, include Shopclues & Jabong. Apart from that, idealo works with numerous Indian mid-sized and small online shops.Considering the fact that Indian consumers are very price sensitive, comparison website such as idealo plays a very important role in the Indian economy. And since the number of ecommerce websites in India are quite big in number, customers need a platform where they can compare the prices of products over different websites and chose the cheapest one with good customer service.
DT: What were the initial challenges for you while setting this business in India?
Mr. Bennet: Before reaching the decision of foraying into the Indian market, our team evaluated various countries on the basis of more than 20 criteria such as legal things, growth of the market, awareness of price comparisons etc. from around the globe.We came to the conclusion that India is one of the most dynamic markets with a very high e-commerce potential and very price-conscious online shoppers.The dynamics of the Indian e-commerce market however, are very different from that of the European market. Keeping this in mind, we have built localized and customized solutions. Our Content Team is constantly creating and editing new categories and products most relevant to the Indian consumers. Amongst others, this includes the research and analysis of relevant categories and products, writing category and products buyer’s guides, research for expert reviews on other websites or in magazines, research of product specifications and suitable product pictures.In fact, Idealo’s User Research department, in cooperation with the Indian Team created its own “Persona” called Deepak for the Indian market. Thesepersonas help us to develop a deep understanding of the needs and desires of the target group as well as to understand the differences between the individual user groups in the market. Deepak has been our guidance when optimizing and creating new categories, our idealo “best” feature or when running competitions for our users.
DT: How do you manage to track prices of wide range of products? How your team works to maintain updated price on your platform?
Mr. Bennet: At the heart of our ecosystem is a 250-strong data content team which ensures that product prices are up-to-date and all the necessary filters are available, enabling users to compare similar products head-to-head. idealo tracks the price trends of their favorite products and also offers a ‘Price Alert’ service which notifies them when the product reaches their target price. All this to ensure the cheapest deal every time.We also offer a ‘Price history’ feature for every product listed. This feature helps the consumers to compare historic prices to upto 1 year. Through this the customer can inform himself of the fluctuations in price that has occurred. This price trend is developed based on the price evolution of the cheapest offer of a products over the last 90 days, or chosen time period. It is automatically generated on each product page, via the offers listed on that page. Since product prices vary, each country on idealo has its own price trends, based on the offers listed.
DT: What are your plans to spread your business and attain a healthy growth rate by this year?
Mr. Bennet: With all our portals, across countries, we follow the goal to become a relevant market player in the mid-term. Relevant market player means for us being at least among the top 5 biggest price comparison websites in that specific market. In the long-term, we aspire to be the market leader in all our markets. Our goal is led by the idea to be the best partner for both of our customer groups. The online shopper, who finds the best prices and all relevant buying information on our website and the online merchants, who are able to generates relevant sales through our service. At the moment, we are very much concentrating to further increase our offer variety and have an interesting cooperation on the way. In addition to that we are working on solutions to better integrate offers from our partners – a requirement that naturally comes with a high number of partners as they are using distinct shop systems and technologies.
DT: How do you work on getting much more traffic through mobile devices?
Mr. Bennet: We are constantly working on this very much from the product and marketing side. We’ve been present in India from the beginning with our mobile Apps for Android and IOS. It’s already one of the best rated price comparison apps in Europe and perfect for the Indian market.At the beginning of 2016 we launched m.idealo.in a subdomain specifically designed for mobile users. Users who visited our site through their mobile devices, were from then on sent to our mobile optimized pages.Last week we set another mobile milestone and replaced our m.idealo pages with our new RWD pages (Responsive Webdesign). To explain in simple terms, we again just have one page, but this page automatically adjusts to all screen sizes and devices whether desktop or mobile.In addition to that we constantly test and recently increased marketing activities that are directed to mobile users.
