Goodbox brings 'conversational commerce' to connect consumers to businesses

The app ecosystem is undergoing a paradigm shift. Consumers are tired of downloading individual apps for services that they need to interact with almost on a daily basis – grocery shopping, ordering food, for instance. Even larger brands, with a significant presence, see an abysmal number of downloads just because this fatigue has set in. Goodbox with its ‘conversational commerce’ mobile application wants to change that.

Founded by CEO Abey Zachariah and co-founders Mayank Bidawatka, Nithin Chandra, Mahesh Herle, Mohit Maheshwari, Anand Kelaginamani and Charan Shetty, Goodbox created its app that would help connect consumers directly with businesses just with their app.” Goodbox is a pivot from our previous business of offering content in long distance buses. We introduced an app to help passengers track their bus’ location while they were at their boarding point. This app had a chat functionality. We had passengers asking for help with hotels, bike rentals, etc. We used to help close these requests by mediating deals with hotels. However, we realised that this model of mediation doesn’t scale. If we would hit 1000 requests on a single day it would not be feasible to mediate these discussions,” shares Mayank.

The app is based on the concept that every shop has a person, products and a payment mechanism. “If you were to recreate the same experience on an app, you need a messaging screen, a menu / product list (with prices) and an online payment gateway. That’s exactly how the design of all businesses on the Goodbox app is structured,” explains Mayank. While the businesses on the Goodbox platform have a menu/product and price list so customers get all the required information, they can also chat with them to get answers to unstructured questions. Chat (via messaging) also helps businesses give consumers a standard usability experience.

Goodbox currently operates with a team of about 75 which is composed mainly of sales professionals and engineers. The business model revolves around charging businesses a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) fee of Rs. 999 per year and 1.99% TDR on every online payment. “Our business model is evolving very fast and there will be multiple ways to monetize at scale. The more value we create for all stakeholders, the more the avenues to monetise,” adds Mayank.

Talking about investing in technology, Mayank says, “We are spending time in making our system scalable and useful to millions of businesses in India. We have created booking engines for supermarkets, restaurants and multiple other businesses. These are our IP and can be scaled across the country.” The company essentially aims to make buying from a business on Goodbox easier than calling them or visiting them. “For example, customers can send an order to a supermarket and request a home delivery or a store pick-up and pay online or by CoD.

The same experience over a call can be painful. Many times supermarkets don’t take calls – resulting in consumers having to call them multiple times. If they do take the call, rattling off a long order over a call can get annoying. On Goodbox once you’ve created your shopping list, you can just send it to the supermarket with a single tap. You can get to know the prices of product on the app – something that’s not available over a call. When you buy at a store, you have to stand in a long queue. When you order over Goodbox, you are saved that trouble. If you order over a call and request a home delivery, you will usually struggle for exact change to pay the delivery boy. However, with Goodbox you can just pay the store online and save yourself the requirement to keep cash,” says Mayank citing real-world problems.

In terms of funding, the company raised $2.5 million in its Series A from Nexus Venture Partners. “We have a very capital efficient business model and are seeing excellent traction from our Series A funds. We are able to build a business at 1/10th the cost large aggregators would have used to do similar transactions – thanks to not having any warehousing or delivery costs associated with our business. Being a technology provider that helps connects two parties, we are asset light and our fund requirements are not as high,” Mayank adds. They look to raise funds again this year to build a technology team and expand to more cities in India (they operate in Bengaluru currently), and then globally.

The company believes the app has tremendous scope because all consumers are on smartphones and every business is trying a figure a way to get online and that too on mobile. An app presence is the best way to achieve that objective, says Mayank. “Most businesses have some sort of mediation built into their business model that forces them to charge businesses a heavy commission. Due to this businesses don’t look at these platforms as their own app presence. Businesses want control and a platform like Goodbox helps them get that without any conflict of interest. We believe that enabling is better than trying to replace what many businesses were doing. Aggregators try to replace existing businesses whereas a business like Goodbox helps businesses plug their weak point – technology. We help them start selling on app and get online at 1/100th the time and cost they would incur to do the same themselves,” he explains.

Goodbox is aiming to expand in Bengaluru with 10,000 businesses in the city as its next milestone.