 "Check out Zopper, a start-up that allows you to compare prices in offline, online stores")
The Delhi-based price comparison start-up, Zopper which was primarily known for its user-generated product reviews until five months ago, has changed and re-branded itself to a price comparison tool for shoppers.
“Earlier we were more focused on reviews and our role was limited to list products from different websites and crowd source reviews. We found it very difficult to monetise reviews as whenever we went to any brand for advertisements, they wanted us to remove negative reviews about them,” said Neeraj Jain, Co-Founder, Zopper.
After realizing that the model was not working, Jain said they decided to focus on price comparison of products for buyers. Started by Neeraj Jain and Surjendu Kulia in 2011, they did not just compare prices of products available on online stores, but also included local shops that were selling the same product. Though there are other price comparison websites like Junglee.com, Compareraja.in, and others, the difference at Zopper is that they compare prices from online retailers only.
“Three years ago, we noticed the growth of e-commerce companies. We realized that there would be so many products listed at different sites at varying prices and there has to be a platform that can aggregate them and inform people,” Jain said. “A lot of people also buy from their local shops after researching for their products online. So we started aggregating prices of products at different offline shops too.”
Easier comparison
Experts and investors feelthat price comparison websites will slowly evolve to cater to the changes in shopping trends. Mahesh Murthy, Founding Partner at Seedfund, a Mumbai-based venture capital firm, said, “The online and offline dynamics will change. Comparison shopping sites will reflect the new reality-featuring comparisons of experiences on ground and perhaps, prices available online, too. So one day you can choose which store to get a demo of a new 3D TV from, and then which store to buy it for the lowest cost online.”
Zopper raised $5 million from Tiger Global Partners in July this year, in which existing investors, Blume Ventures and Nirvana Ventures also participated. It clocks yearly revenue of ‘a few lakh’, according to Jain.
The company earns through the leads that it generates from users who after checking the price online, actually go on to buy the product. It has more than 150,000 offline retailers listed on its website and app spread across 10 cities. “Our objective is to drive business to physical retail stores that contribute 99 percent of commerce in India. We intend to earn money by taking a small share of the business that we drive to them,” Jain said.
However, there is no mechanism in place for Zopper to find out when a user reaches out or buys a product from an offline store after checking the price on their website or app. It is only when a user calls the offline store to inquire about the price that Zopper can track that lead. “We are working towards making sure that we close the loop which is at this moment open-ended,” said Jain.
The company has partnered with select shops to offer exclusive prices and coupons to its registered users. Currently, it claims to have around 150 deals for its users from different offline shops. An unnamed source said deals and exclusive prices are available only in Delhi-NCR at around 500 retail stores and the plan is to elevate it to 20,000 retailers across the country.
Mobile first
One of the other major changes that Zopper went through was shifting its platform from web to mobile as the search result of offline shops had to be location-specific. “A lot of offline merchants offer deals to our shoppers. Based on user’s location we show them deals on our app that is more refined than our web platform. All these deals are exclusive to us and not for other shoppers,” Jain said.
He claims to have more than 200,000 users on the new android app launched three months ago and more than 1.5 million visitors on the website.
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