E-commerce in India is developing at a remarkable speed; emerging players like Flipkart and Amazon have proven their success stories. Currently, the E-commerce industry seems to be the ultimate winner in the business world. Several E-commerce websites are emerging and taking India by storm. When you are shopping, who doesn’t like discounts and great deals. Thanks to deal websites we have that options. Deals websites are intended to offer exclusive deals and products each time.
Deal websites in India save money and offer great deals while shopping from those E-commerce websites. You know there are numerous great deals online. However, you do not have the time to classify them as good and bad sites. In this article, we will talk about the top deal offering sites. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
GrabOn is an online coupon and deals website in India that list various offers on online merchants such as Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, Foodpanda, Jabong, and redBus, and updates them on their website. GrabOn declares that there are 4000 coupons from more than 2,000 dealers. It has over 40 million registered customers and receives 25 million page views. It gains commissions from e-commerce businesses for transactions. It is a brand owned and operated by e-commerce commodities company InspireLabs. GrabOn provides genuine and real deals on its platform.
Couponswala
Couponswala Website
Company Name
Couponswala
Location
Bangalore
Founded
2019
Website
couponswala.com
Couponswala offers some great shopping discounts, offers and coupons from some of the most prominent Indian websites like Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm, Makemytrip, and more. It provides coupons for over 1000 E-commerce websites. Couponwala started its journey in the year 2019 and has been offering exclusive and pretty amazing deals to the customers of some popular websites. The headquarters is located in Bangalore. It’s known for providing updated and genuine deals and coupons on its platform.
Mydala
Mydala Website
Company Name
Mydala
Location
Delhi
Founders
Anisha Singh
Founded
2009
Website
mydala.com
This is one of the oldest and most successful deal websites in India for the past six-year. Mydala is offering discounted deals across most of the categories. The company collects a commission as soon as the customer buys or books a deal. After that, the residual amount is paid by the customer at the time of redemption of the offer when he visits the retailer to avail facility. It is targeting over 410 million consumers in over 209 cities in India.
Nearbuy
Nearbuy Website
Company Name
Nearbuy
Location
Hyderabad
Founders
Ankur Warikoo
Founded
2010
Website
nearbuy.com
Nearbuy is a brand owned and operated by Nearbuy India Private Limited, it is a hyper-local online deals website that allows customers and local traders to discover and deal with one another. Giving local merchants and businesses more distinctness and business. It is currently operating in more than 35 cities in India and 18+ divisions and has over 50,000 retailers onboard.
Freekaamaal
Freekaamal Website
Company Name
Freekaamal
Location
Noida
Founders
Ravi Kumar
Founded
2010
Website
freekaamal.com
FreeKaaMaal.com is one of the head deals and coupon sites in India. It is a customer-driven website. Users can post the best deals they find on several e-commerce sites, and then the team selects the best out of them to promote them. Freekaamaal is partnered with more than 600+ online stores including, brands like Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, Snapdeal, Jabong, Shopclues, Myntra, and many more.
MyTokri
MyTokri Website
Company Name
Mytokri
Location
Delhi
Founders
Saurabh Gupta
Founded
2012
Website
mytokri.com
MyTokri is one of the prime online shopping deals gateways in India. Today, MyTokri is a renowned name to find quality online deals and coupons and turn the large industry into an online deals area. It lists thousands of online deals from 200+ e-dealers in India to help you get the most happening deals every day. MyTokri works on the concept of “New day New deals”. They also have a spot on their website where customers can find new and updated deals of the day. It also lists and maintains thousand of active discount coupons for online shopping websites.
DesiDime
DesiDime Website
Company Name
DesiDime
Location
Mumbai
Founders
Mehul Jobanputra & Jimish Jobanputra
Founded
2010
Website
desidime.com
DesiDime is a user-driven community for deals coupons and shopping online. Desidime is created to present a platform for users to cooperate, make friends, and share coupon information to make the best shopping deals. Started by cousins Mehul Jobanputra & Jimish Jobanputra and works as a community-driven social platform where people can contribute to the content, users can upload deals and coupons that they have found on the internet and can help others to save bucks.
Conclusion
There are other sites providing discount coupons and offers for online shopping for customers in India. The deal sites provide coupons for various e-commerce stores such as Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, and many more for shoppers to get the product/service at a discounted price. With the rise of e-commerce in the country, seems like deal sites are thriving and will continue to thrive in the near future as well.
FAQs
What are deal sites?
Deal sites mainly provide good discounts and exclusive deals while buying products from and services from e-commerce.
Who founded Grabon?
Grabon was founded by Bhanu Raju and Spandan Jaggumantri in 2013.
Which is the most popular deal site in India?
Grabon is said to be the most popular deal site in India.
Today is the time when we have everything on our phones. Any product or service we need, we have an app for it.
The startups begin by providing their products and services online. But there are other people as well who have stayed in the offline markets only.
So now apps even enable to bridge the gap between customers and local entrepreneurs. Nearbuy came up with software solutions to bridge this gap and develop a connection between the two.
Nearbuy provides information about spas, events, restaurants, and more. It helps the customers as well as the businesses to discover and connect with each other.
Nearbuy is a lifestyle application that helps to connect customers with various businesses. It offers discounts, cashback offers, and information about various services. These include restaurants, spas, movie theatres, gyms, salons, and more.
It provides amazing offers that allow the customers to save money every time they visit a restaurant, watch a movie, and others.
Nearbuy helps you to explore your own or a new city. It helps you to discover the hotspots around you.
Foundation of Nearbuy
Nearbuy was founded in the year 2010 as Groupon India. The founders of the company included Ankur Warikoo, Snehesh Mitra, Sumeet Kapur, Sachin Kapur, Ankur Sarawagi, and Ravi Shankar. It has its headquarters in Gurugram, India.
Nearbuy is a management buyout of its parent firm Groupon. In the year 2015, it received investment from Sequoia Capital India. With this, the company rebranded itself as Nearbuy in India.
This step intended to cater to the needs of the Indians in a specific manner. Chief Executive of Groupon India, Ankur Warikoo believed that it would be better to follow a specific path for local Indian markets rather than the global path.
How Does Nearbuy Work?
Nearbuy provides a platform for the customers to get deals and discounts with service providers. To enjoy these deals, a customer has to first register on the company’s website or app.
After registration, a person can look for deals according to their preference. When a person finds a service of their choice, they can buy it at a deal price. Then the customer receives a coupon that they have to present to the service provider.
In this way, a customer enjoys the services at a discounted price.
The businesses get a platform to market themselves and gain customers. Nearbuy receives a commission from the service providers on every service sold via the platform. It offers amazing discounts and deals which attract the customers. This enables the businesses to make more profits and thus, more commissions for Nearbuy.
In this way, Nearbuy acts as a mediator between the customers and businesses.
What Challenges Did Nearbuy Face?
The toughest challenge for Nearbuy was to create a place for its belonging. The company faced troubles in explaining its services to the users.
Nearbuy has been looked upon as a platform that gives discounts. It aimed for more than it. Ankur Warikoo explained its aim as to take offline businesses online. The platform is meant to help the customers discover, buy, and save at the same time.
The company wanted to make the Indian consumers explore the offline markets in a new way. To make people understand this was the biggest challenge for the company.
Few consumers could understand the importance of it. The rest on the other hand didn’t like to understand its importance.
What are the Reasons for Nearbuy’s Failure?
India is a market where customers love to enjoy discounts. Nearbuy was here to help with it. But still, the company could not attract many users. This made Nearbuy unable to stand strong on its own.
Some reasons why Nearbuy failed are:
It was difficult for the company to make people have a proper understanding of its services.
The virtue of a discount-oriented platform was quite limited in India. This made Nearbuy unable to attract and keep customers.
A large part of Indian consumers did not deal in online money transactions. This made the platform useless for a large number of customers.
Nearbuy saw great success in its early days. With this, they expanded their services in more cities. All this required more merchants and money. But the company could not gain enough consumers. This derived the company of its transactions.
Indian customers have a deep love for discounts. They demand some extraordinary deals that they cannot find anywhere else. Nearbuy could not offer that amount of satisfaction.
Platforms like Paytm, Amazon acted as their competitors. These gained more trust among the people. Thus, almost robbed Nearbuy with its users.
In 2017, despite its funds, it could not stand alone and grow. So, it got acquired by Paytm in December 2017. Now, Nearbuy has Paytm as its parent organization.
Few Tips for The Coupon Websites
The coupon websites do not solve any major consumer issues. So, they need to remember certain tips to grow well. These include:
The best tip is to find niche opportunities. The competition in the discount areas is too high. It is good to select a niche and provide the best deals possible in it.
Make use of affiliate sales. It is important to know the interests of the people and offer deals accordingly. This helps to acquire a bigger audience.
When your site offers a discount, make sure it’s bigger than others. If not, then customers don’t need your website.
Indulge in email listings. This will help you to turn your site visitors into email subscribers.
Conclusion
Over the years, Nearbuy has seen a great number of ups and downs. It helps people in saving money with its various deals and discount offers. It acted as a bridge between the customers and offline businesses.
In this way, the company helped offline merchants to earn more sales. Also, it helped the customers to explore the best things to do, buy and enjoy them. With its success and failures combined, it continues to function under its parent organization, Paytm.
FAQ
What is Nearbuy?
Nearbuy is a lifestyle application that helps to connect customers with various businesses. It offers discounts, cashback offers, and information about various services.
How much did Paytm buy Nearbuy for?
Paytm acquired Little Internet and Nearbuy for Rs 272.31 crore.
Why did Nearbuy fail?
Nearbuy failed in India as it did not solve any major problem of the consumers and people weren’t looking or craving for deals platforms in India.
Everyone who has achieved success in life has a story to tell. An event that forever altered their lives and shaped who they are today. An event or an incident that gave them the guts and motivation to fulfill their life ambitions and goals.
There are many motivators and gurus present on the internet today who share knowledge about investments, startups, businesses, financial planning, personal life, and whatnot. There is one such prominent person who is an angel investor as well as a well-renowned YouTuber, Ankur Warikoo. Understand more about this gentleman – Ankur Warikoo’s journey in this writeup.
Ankur Warikoo is a business owner, motivational speaker, mentor, and angel investor by profession. Secondshaadi.com, Gaadi.com now Cardekho.com, and Nearbuy.com are some of the few startups that he co-founded.
Ankur Warikoo was one of the first employees hired by Groupon to launch and oversee its India operations in 2011 as it was its inception time. Deal-hunting was the most popular online activity at that time.
Ankur Warikooo Education
He completed his schooling at Don Bosco School in the capital city, New Delhi. Then he enrolled in Hindu College for a B.Sc. in Physics (B.Sc Physics). After that, he enrolled for Ph.D. in Physics (MS, Astrophysics) from Michigan State University, which he left after finishing his MS. He then went on to complete his MBA (Masters of Business Administration) at the Indian School of Business after returning from the United States.
Ankur Warikoo – Personal Life
Ankur Warikoo is a Kashmiri Pandit who was never born into a wealthy family. But he had a clear idea of what he wanted to achieve with his life, which turned out to be nothing like what he is doing now.
Despite his desire to work for NASA and travel to Mars, life had other plans for him. He dropped out of his Ph.D. program because he was unhappy with his work. Something was always lacking for him. He buried his emotions for years before seeing that this was not the road for him.
Ruchi Budhiraja Warikoo is the wife of Ankur Warikoo. She was Ankur’s love in high school. She met her when he was a student at the Hindu college and she was a resident of Miranda House. They met on the bus on their way to college, where Ruchi and her friends used to perform silly charades virtually every day.
Ruchi is the only one who truly understands and supports Ankur in whatever he does. Uzma andVidur, are their two children.
Ankur enjoys public speaking and is frequently seen giving talks at corporations, universities, schools, and conferences on topics such as motivation, leadership, consumer internet, and entrepreneurial attitude.
Ankur Warikoo at TEDxSBSC- Entrepreneurship As A State Of Mind
Ankur Warikoo – Career
After completing his studies, Ankur landed a position at AT Kearney, a consulting firm. Warikoo worked in the real estate industry and media and entertainment sectors in Dubai, New York, and India while working at Kearney. After getting his MBA, he worked at Kearney for three years until deciding to establish his own business in 2010.
While Ankur was at ISB, along with his batch mates he started his first venture, secondshaadi.com. In those few years after quitting his job, he joined in building various websites across industries like automobiles, education, and finance. One of the biggest hits was Gaadi.com which was eventually sold to goibibo.com.
Soon after these two startups, Ankur joined hands with Groupon as the founding CEO in India. Along with that he also managed businesses in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia for Groupon. He led Groupon’s business in India for around four years until 2015. That year he took a major step and bought a major shareholding of India business from Groupon with Sequoia Capital and transformed it into a whole new independent startup, Nearbuy.com.
He started Nearbuy, a lifestyle company, in 2015 which provided interesting deals on restaurants, spas, beverages, and other local businesses. This startup was funded by Sequoia capital. He left his position as CEO in 2019 to pursue a career as a content creator. The other two co-founders still run the business of Nearbuy.
Ankur Warikoowas named toFortune India’s 40 Under 40 list, was the Social Media Entrepreneur of the Year held by CMO Asia in 2017, and was also featured in the LinkedIn spotlight in 2019.
Ankur Warikoo- An Author
Ankur Warikoo’s authored books- Do Epic Shit & Get Epic Shit Done
Ankur Warikoo as a content creator always shared productivity and life skills on different platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
In 2021, He published all his posts compendium titled “DO EPIC SHIT” (National Bestseller), in which he talks about success and failure, habits, awareness, entrepreneurship, money, and relationships.
Again in 2022, he published another book on actionable hacks titled “GET EPIC SHIT DONE“, in which he intricacies of management of life like mindset, focus, meditations, etc.
Story Behind the Brand ‘Warikoo’
When Ankur was the CEO of nearbuy.com in 2016, he created the brand Warikoo. The brand was created with the goal of owning the stories and building a brand for future talent. Ankur volunteered for the job since he enjoys public speaking, and one lovely Wednesday, he filmed a video with the headline “If you don’t ask, the answer is always no!”
It was named “Warikoo Wednesdays” by him.
Since then, the brand has expanded by leaps and bounds, and it can now be found on nearly every major social media platform. The brand continues to expand mostly through video content, which assists consumers in making decisions based on awareness rather than ignorance.
Ankur Warikoo encourages young people in their twenties and thirties to explore new things, make errors, and learn from their failures. Spending time with individuals who aren’t like us was one of the three factors that let him live a life without a plan. “It is so easy for us to take our failures seriously and consider them the end of the road,” he writes on his website ankurwarikoo.com in a PDF document titled My Failure Resume. I am the best proof that self-doubt exists, as well as the finest proof that it can be conquered — it’s simply a never-ending struggle.”
FAQs
What is the net worth of Ankur Warikoo?
The net worth of Ankur Warikoo is approximately $10 Million.
What is the education qualification of Ankur Warikoo?
Ankur Warikoo did BSc in Physics from Hindu College, dropped out from MS in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Michigan State University, and MBA in Finance from ISB.
What does Ankur Warikoo do?
Ankur Warikoo is a content creator, public speaker, and entrepreneur.
Nearbuy was started in 2011 by Ankur Warikoo, Snehesh Mitra, and Ravi Shankar. The company is based in India and is funded by Paytm. Its headquarters are based in Gurgaon, Delhi and have their presence in 33 cities in India. The core of the company is technology and product-driven. They live by the motto: Work is play.
Their e-commerce website provides services connecting consumers with the largest number of local businesses in India. Their app classifies itself in the lifestyle section. It encourages consumers to explore the city, discover buzzing hotspots nearby, and choose from, and allows the freedom to choose from a wide range of categories.
The website makes it easy for the consumers to discover things to do close to them and avail exclusive deals across various categories like: Restaurants, Spas, Salons, Movie halls, Retail stores, and Amusement parks. And more.
The website boasts about taking local e-commerce where it has never been taken before. With the company’s motto “This is where you belong” if you thrive on the thrill of operating in a world of firsts an it encourages consumers to explore the city, discover buzzing hotspots nearby, and choose.
Their target audience is all the people who would like to spend but also get something that is easy on their pockets. That includes college-going students, people who have just started working, foodies; and explorers who like a little discount to save up a bit of their money.
Nearbuy Marketing Strategies
The advantage of creating something that is worth sharing:
Following a simple business model, Nearbuy offers cashback deals, coupons and great discounts to its consumers and helps them save money at every step they take. These consumers are constantly on the lookout for places to go. Like restaurants, for shopping, spas, salons and a lot more with discounts, obviously.
The advantage? They know exactly their target audience and what is the segment in the market to whom they are selling their services to, understanding their needs like “what do they want?” By providing discounts to its customers. The idea of having multiple brands offering you something you value at a discounted rate just does the trick!
Social media combined with Influencer marketing:
Take a look at Nearbuy’s YouTube channel. You can notice they are making the most out of it with the famous comedian, Zakir Khan featuring in their ad campaigns.
Creating an influence on people, building that link of trust. Apart from YouTube. Nearbuy also has its presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Innovation:
Innovation helps any company stay on top. With the change, if the company fails to keep up with it, it fails. People are quick to forget about your product or service, let alone the name of your brand. Remember Jabong? The company could not keep up with the change.
Nearbuy talks about bringing their agile innovation – releasing standard-defining new products every year. It has also launched nbPAY, India’s first Payment-linked deals product. Also has Gift Cards as a category, offering deals on gift cards. It keeps up by bringing in new ways that might interest consumers.
Engaging Instagram Marketing:
Nearbuy Instagram
The brand optimizes its social media presence on Instagram to create conversations among its audience. With posts wishing them for any festivals or occasions. And creating informative posts on various topics like types of forks, hair care tips for people with thick hair, the dos and don’ts of makeup, and more.
Captivating the audience with videos:
Nearbuy YouTube
Using videos is important as the right embedded videos can increase conversions by 86%. The short, descriptive videos on YouTube captivate the audience, using the platform of YouTube with content. Nearbuy does just that.
Taking on the Digital Space:
Nearbuy Website
Apart from that, it also has a strong landing page, that allows the consumers to connect easily and know more about them. Giving them a boost of having a strong digital presence.
We can conclude that Nearbuy has a smart, innovative and simple yet effective marketing strategy to drive change while helping local businesses thrive.
Top Partners of Nearbuy
The companies that Nearbuy has partnered with include top restaurant, spa, and salon brands, which includes:
KFC, Barbeque Nation, Dominos Pizza Hut, PVR, INO, Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), Smaaash, McDonald’s, Water Kingdom, Essel World, Kidzania, O2 Spa, Big Bazaar, Amazon, Myntra, Jabong and Looks Salon.
FAQ
Who is the founder of Nearbuy?
Ankur Warikoo, Snehesh Mitra, Sachin Kapur, Ankur Sarawagi, Sumeet Kapur, Ravi Shankar are the founders of Nearbuy.
Why did Nearbuy fail?
Nearbuy failed to set its foot in India because deal platforms are not something Indian consumers crave for.
Who is the parent company of Nearbuy?
Paytm and Little Internet Pvt. Ltd. are the parent organizations of Nearbuy.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved byNearbuy.
Owing to a lack of time and fair prices, everybody nowadays prefers online shopping. The eCommerce industry was last valued at $22 billion in 2018 and is estimated to be worth around $200 billion by 2027. Thus, the growth that the eCommerce industry is seeing is beyond comparison. This outstanding growth that the industry has seen and the exponential growth that is predicted for the industry could only be possible with the range of successful players and the pioneers of the idea. Moreover, the e-commerce players have rapidly grown over the past couple of years to become hyper-local entities to serve their customers better.
Gurgaon-based Nearbuy is one of the firsts of Indian hyperlocal eCommerce companies. The Indian hyper-local eCommerce company, founded in 2010, has been built to extend an array of products across diverse categories for the customers to buy almost anything when it comes to services. So, whether the users want to dine online, relax at the best spas, or discover their city most intimately, it is Nearbuy that they looked up to.
Nearbuy.com, which was formerly known as SoSasta, Crazeal, and Groupon, was formed in 2015 and now stands acquired by Paytm since December 7, 2017, when the digital payments giant acquired Nearbuy and its parent organization, Little, signed a merger deal of the two well-funded companies. The company still stands as a hyper-local, deals-based, e-commerce services company owned by Paytm.
Here’s a look at Nearbuy.com and its Founders and Team, Mission and Vision, Startup Story, Business Model, Revenue Model, Growth, Funding and Investors, Competitors, Challenges Faced, Future Plans, and more.
As of September 2019, Ankur Warikoo, the co-founder and ex-CEO resigned from Nearbuy. Warikoo announced that he would step down as CEO of Nearbuy in November, handing over the reins to co-founders Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra. Shankar, who was previously the COO of Nearbuy, will take over as CEO, with Mitra taking over as COO of the Paytm-owned firm. Warikoo will remain a shareholder and member of the company’s board of directors.
About Nearbuy and How it Works?
Nearbuy.com (Nearbuy India Private Limited) is India’s first hyper-local online services platform, built to let consumers and local merchants connect and interact along with helping them get the best deals possible. The company was first founded as SoSasta and was eventually acquired by Nasdaq-listed Groupon Inc in 2011. The company then changed its name to Groupon India in 2013. Finally, the company was named Nearbuy in 2015 when Sequoia Capital India and Ankur Warikoo bought majority stakes in the firm. Ankur Warikoo has no longer been the CEO since November 2019 when Ravi Shankar was appointed for the position.
Nearbuy.com was built with the aim to make things easily available for users. Whatever the needs of the customers may be, whether it is to enjoy fine dining, unwind at the world-class spas, or simply get their city known a little better, Nearbuy.com aimed to make all of them possible for the users.
Nearbuy provides its merchants with a clear branding and visibility-driven network that makes it easy for consumers to find their businesses in and around their locations. Nearbuy is available in 35+ markets, 18+ categories, and 100,000+ unique places, with over 50,000 merchants.
You can download the Nearbuy app from the Google Play Store or the iTunes Store to discover, purchase, and share exciting experiences around you.
Nearbuy – Mission and Vision
The mission statement of Nearbuy says, “We at nearbuy.com are taking hyperlocal ecommerce where it’s never gone before. So, if you thrive on the thrill of operating in a world of firsts,you belong at nearbuy.com.“
Nearbuy – Founders and Team
Ankur Warikoo, Ankur Sarawagi, Sumeet Kapur, Sachin Kapur, Ravi Shankar,and Snehesh Mitra are the founders of Nearbuy, which was founded in 2010.
Ravi Shankar, current CEO and Co-Founder of Nearbuy
Ravi Shankar L
Ravi Shankar did his Bachelors of Engineering before pursuing an MBA Marketing from Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development. Ravi Shankar started with Wipro as a Presales Technical Consultant and went on to become the National Sales Manager there. Shankar was then the Business Director at Groupon. After leaving Groupon, Ravi Shankar joined Little Internet, where he was appointed as the CEO and Board Member. Nearbuy was the next company where he went on to become the COO, who was later appointed as the CEO for a brief period of more than a year. Shankar is currently serving as a Co-founder and Board Member of Nearbuy along with being the SVP at Paytm.
Ankur Warikoo
Mentor, angel investor, and public speaker, Ankur Warikoo is a Hindu College and Michigan State University from where he graduated with a BSc in Physics and an MS in Astronomy and Astrophysics, eventually pursuing an MBA in Finance from the Indian School of Business. Warikoo started as the Head of APAC market at Groupon Inc and was then appointed as the CEO. He was also a co-founder and CEO of Nearbuy and is currently serving as a Board member. Along with this, Warikoo is an Educator and Content Creator at Brand Warikoo and a Board member of the Indian School of Business.
Ankur Sarawagi
Another co-founder of Nearbuy, Ankur Sarawagi is an IIT Bombay alumnus from where he completed his BTech and MTech in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Integrated Manufacturing along with a Minor in Operations Research. Starting from Bain & Company, Ankur joined Groupon as the Director of Sales. However, it was only a brief stint that Ankur had with Groupon, eventually moving on to co-found Nearbuy. Ankur is currently serving as the Vice President, International Growth & Managing Director of WeddingWire India at The Knot Worldwide, which came into being as a result of the merger of WeddingWire and The Knot. Sarawagi has also served as the VP & Country Manager at WeddingWire.
Snehesh Mitra
Snehesh graduated from IIT Kharagpur in Electric and Electronics Engineering. Mitra was the co-founder Urban Blocks and Nearbuy along with being the CTO of the former and CTO, COO, and CPO of the latter organization. Mitra is currently serving as a Product Manager of Google. Along with these, Snehesh had also previously worked with Algo Works, Mobicules Systems, NDS Limited, Headstrong, HCL Technologies, and more in numerous key designations.
Sumeet Kapur
Sumeet Kapur is also known as the co-founder of Nearbuy. Kapur was a student of Delhi University from where he completed Bcom. (Hons.) before moving on to The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and completing his CA degree. In his career, Sumeet has been the Co-founder and Director of Finance at Edutopper, CFO and Regional Financial Director of Emerging Markets (APAC), Co-founder and CFO at Nearbuy.com, Co-founder at Inflexion Point and is currently serving as a Founder and CEO at Wellcure.com.
Sachin Kapur
Sachin Kapur is also a Delhi University alumnus, who next went to obtain a PGDBM, Management from the Centre for Management Development. Starting with a brief stint at Fever 104 FM, Sachin went to become a Sr. Manager Marketing and Strategy at BigRock. Leaving the company after a year and a half, Sachin Kapur then moved on to become the CMO of Groupon. He eventually became the CO-founder and CMO of Nearbuy. Presently, Sachin is serving as Sr. Director Marketing at Coupang.
Nearbuy, owned by Paytm, is currently around 160+ employees strong.
Nearbuy – Startup Story
Nearbuy was formed or rather named in 2015. The company was founded as SoSasta in 2009, but it was acquired in 2011 by the Chicago-based parent of Nearbuy, Groupon Inc., in 2011 with an aim to begin operations in India. It then changed its name to Groupon India in 2013.
Ankur Warikoo and Ravi Shankar worked for Groupon as executives, with the former leading the company after the founders of SoSasta left. After Sequoia enabled the exit of Groupon Inc in 2015, Groupon India was rebranded as Nearbuy. Nearbuy, along with Little, was purchased by the payments company Paytm in a distress deal two years later. Paytm helped promote a share exchange arrangement between Little and Nearbuy shareholders, which resulted in Nearbuy becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Little Internet.
The purchase price for both companies was set at INR 272.31 crore. Following the acquisition, the company gained access to a large pool of capital along with a large Paytm userbase. It, however, struggled to make an impact because sales were unable to keep up with expenses. The company had total revenue of INR 33.28 crore in FY18, with losses of INR 49.11 crore.
Nearbuy – Name, Logo and Tagline
Nearbuy’s old name is Groupon India. After the rebranding of Nearbuy in August 2015, Groupon became a minority stakeholder in nearbuy.com.
Nearbuy’ s Company Logo
“The Lifestyle App” is the tagline of Nearbuy. Nearbuy comes in and says “Let us give you a discount for visiting the place through us.”
Nearbuy – Business and Revenue Model
Nearbuy is an Online-to-Offline services ecommerce platform, which is currently owned and funded by Paytm, established to connect the consumers with India’s largest network of local businesses. nearbuy.com makes it easy for the consumers to discover their worlds along with helping them avail exclusive deals across categories such as restaurants, spas, salons, movie halls, retail stores, amusement parks and more.
The key highlights of Nearbuy business and revenue model are as follows:
Nearbuy makes a contract with local stores and service-based businesses such as spas and salons.
Retailers promise to lower their rates in exchange for being featured on the website.
Nearbuy makes the majority of its profits by charging a fee of 2% to 25% of the sale price.
Retailers receive a substantial amount of revenue in exchange for providing such steep discounts on the website.
They often accept advertisements on the website, increasing the company’s revenue.
Nearbuy – Revenue and Growth
In terms of sales, FY18 was another low year for the firm. Though the company’s overall revenue rose by just 4.9% from INR 31.73 crore in FY17 to INR 33.28 crore in FY18, its basic turnover decreased by 16.4% from INR 28.22 crore to INR 23.58 crore. This simply suggests that the minuscule rise in sales was not due to the company’s main operations. Instead, it leaned on a 2.76X increase in other revenue, which increased from INR 3.52 crore to INR 9.7 crore.
Nearbuy.com claims to be present in more than 33 cities across 18+ categories. Furthermore, the company has more than 68,000 merchants to deal with across 100,000+ unique locations. Here’s some more growth highlights of the company, as reported on March 2019:
It has a monthly active users count of 3 million
It receives around 7.5 million monthly visits
Nearbuy app has been downloaded by 4.9 million users
The biggest obstacle, according to Ankur, the former CEO of Nearbuy, was to build the group, to which Nearbuy belongs. Users would mistakenly think of the business as a deal and discount platform, which is exactly what Groupon was. The mission of Nearbuy is to put the offline world online in a way that allows users to discover, buy, and save.
Simply informing consumers that they can purchase their favorite restaurants, spas, salons, entertainment zones, hotels, brands, and other services online and then walk in to consume them while saving money is a huge challenge in and of itself. Few people get it, but the majority do not. They don’t consider it a normal part of their lives.
“I often say this internally – our job at Nearbuy is not to grow the company, rather to build a completely new way for Indian consumers to explore the offline world which was a big task,” says Ankur.
Nearbuy expects revenue of INR 255.99 crore and a net profit of INR 17.73 crore by 2022-23. The estimated sales, according to Warikoo, are reasonable and vary from the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV, or total value of merchandise), which is much higher.
“We are capitalized and on a growth expansion mode. As long as we are unit economics positive, we can manage our fixed costs with the investment raised out of this merger. The plan is to grow this number to 250,000 in three years. We have a maximum available universe of roughly around 350,000 merchants” says Warikoo.
Warikoo claims that discretionary spending among Indian consumers has increased by more than doubling to 7% of individual income over the last decade.
Nearbuy – FAQs
What does Nearbuy do?
Nearbuy.com (Nearbuy India Private Limited) is India’s first hyper-local online platform, allowing consumers and local merchants to connect and interact. Nearbuy.com makes it possible for you to enjoy fine dining, unwind at world-class spas, or simply get to know your city better.
Who founded Nearbuy?
Nearbuy was founded by Ankur Warikoo,Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra in 2015.
Which company owns Nearbuy?
Paytm owns Nearbuy.
How does Nearbuy make money?
Nearbuy did not charge its merchant anything for setup. Customers are only charged a fee for each purchase they make. Depending on the popularity and category, the commission ranges between 2% and 25%.
Which companies do Nearbuy compete with?
Top competitors of Nearbuy are Gmarket, Magicpin, Paytm, Grofers India Pvt, Shopee, Blibli, Amazon India, Swiggy, CashKaro, and LivingSocial.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Little App.
Connecting customers with merchants and retailers isn’t easy. There are various major and minor hurdles that need to be taken care of. The Bangalore-based startup Little app was started with the very aim of connecting customers with their nearby businesses.
Launched in 2015, Little App, (Little Internet Pvt. Ltd.) is a hyper-local deals discovery platform was started for connecting people to merchants across services like restaurants, spa, salons, activities, etc. It let customers discover services and offer at their favorite offline stores. In a way, it acted as a sales channel for shop merchants and created a win-win situation for both customers and merchants.
Founded by two seasoned entrepreneurs Manish Chopra and Satish Mani, Little App had an interesting journey from its inception in 2015, to its acquisition in 2017 by Paytm and later its merger with Nearbuy.com. Little App currently has over 3 million users and more than 40,000 live offers. Little App is one of the fastest-growing coupons and deal websites that is offering up to 70% off on fun activities and daily events.
Here is all you would love to know about Little App.
Little app co-founder Manish Chopra, also served as the CEO of India’s leading online fashion brand, Zovi from 2012-2018. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey with Zovi and Little App, Manish worked in different roles as (Strategy & Planning and Director) at Microsoft, (Director of Product Marketing) at Oracle, and Vice president of Intiqua.
He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from The University of Punjab and later went on to get his MBA from S.P Jain Institute of Management and Research. Manish, who served as the CEO of Little App, left Little App after its acquisition by Paytm, and its merger with Nearbuy. Currently, Manish is Director and Head of Partnerships at Facebook (India).
The founders of Little App
Little App co-founder Satish Mani is a die-hard tech and fitness enthusiast. He has created top-class portals and is a thought leader in his domain. He was also the Co-founder and CTO of Zovi.com. Satish did his Master’s in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Old Dominion University. With more than 20 years of product and development experience in B2C as well as B2B environments, Satish helped build one of India’s most admired travel portals—Cleartrip.
Satish’s interests include system architecture for scalability, UI/UX, German shepherds, and product development. Satish served as the CTO of Little App from its inception till its acquisition by Paytm. Currently, he is SVP at MakeMyTrip Travel Services Private Limited.
Around 2015, Manish and Satish saw a lot of traction towards online marketplaces. They went after a huge opportunity at that time in the Indian mobile platform (O2O space). The duo realized O2O (Online To Offline) was about to explode alongside smartphone growth.
So, Manish and Satish built a team to create an app for connecting thousands of merchants who have services to sell across verticals like health and wellness, food and beverage, entertainment, and last-minute hotel bookings.
“Little is the “Connector” between the customer who wants to have great experiences and awesome deals and the merchant who is ready to offer the same to the customer. We are an online to offline market place, absolutely one of its kinds where customer has all the empowerment to make intelligent choices using our App. The problem solved here is the lack of an organized national player to make this happen. Little does it with finesse using world class app great deals at the right time and NOW, merchant strength and user experience. The real differentiator is the scale and depth of the merchant ecosystem. Fantastic Deals around you – can only be realized by having the largest ecosystem.” explained the co-founder of Little App, Manish Chopra.
Little App Logo
Little App – Major Challenges Faced
Hiring the right kind of people quickly was a significant challenge that Little App faced. They needed senior leaders as well as young dynamic front-line business development executives. Training and retaining them was an obstacle on top of this. Little App also has a lot of competitors in the markets.
Little App website and app were designed to let the users browse through a vast number of deals across various platforms – restaurants, movies, salons, spas, and other interesting activities near them. Now Little App’s services can be accessed through the Nearbuy app. With a user-friendly interface, the Nearbuy app lets its users discover, buy and save on Little App merchants nearest to them.
The little app first user offer allows the customers to get extra offers, redeem coupons, discounts, and other offers where they can save money. The customer can also choose right from the budget to the premium ones. The customers can also find local event coupon deals and get additional cashback when they shop with TopCashback offers. The Little App services can also be used while booking theme parks, medical clinics, and outdoor activities.
Little App services
Little App – Business Model
Little App offered deals of outlets and charged a commission on every deal sold. Customers buy the Little App coupons or deals and pay for them. Little App in turn cuts its commission fee and returned the rest to the outlet.
Outlets: Sell their products/services on Little to attract more customers and fill their tables.
Little App: Has a huge customer base and offers free marketing platform to outlets. In turn, it charges commission for every deal sold.
Customers: Pay a lesser price for their choice. So it’s a win-win for all!
Little App website is a service marketplace that provides a platform for tens of thousands of merchant organizations to reach millions of consumers through smartphones. It charged the merchants a small fee between 6-8% for using its platform which including payment facilitation.
Little App – Acquisitions And Mergers
Little acquired Trideal, a Chandigarh based curated deals marketplace, in October 2015. It also acquired the beauty and wellness start-up Stylofie for an undisclosed amount. Through acquisition of Stylofie, Little App was able to penetrate further within the beauty and wellness segment. With this acquisition, Little Internet Pvt. Ltd. got access to more than 50,000 registered visitors and over 1,000 merchants on the Stylofie platform.
Little App – Funding
In January 2016, Little App raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt Ltd.
Little App raised $50 million (Rs. 318 crores) in July 2015, from One97Communications (which runs mobile payments venture Paytm), SAIF Partners, Tiger Global Management, and others.
The main competitor of Little App is MagicPin, as it is considered to be a top competitor of Little App. CouponDunia is Little App’s next rival. CouponDunia is headquartered in Mumbai and was founded in 2010. CouponDunia operates in the discount stores industry. Mydala is another rival. Besides, Deal Chaat, Cash Karo, and Coupon Raja have also competed with Little App. Prior to its merger, Nearbuy was also a major competitor of Little App.
Little App – Growth
Little App saw rapid growth with the rapid development of India’s mobile Internet ecosystem. The unprecedented success of the category has been facilitated by innovative technology solutions aimed at benefiting customers and merchants alike. Moreover, the company’s thought process is in sync with the much-needed move by the Indian Government towards digitizing payments.
In May 2017, Little App announced the launch of its operations in three new cities – Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. After the launch, Manish said:
“After our successful launch in 11 cities, we are excited to roll out our service in Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. They seem to be one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Little App has received phenomenal response and acceptance across all its functional cities. We look forward to revolutionizing these markets as well. We will leverage our technology prowess, deep operational experience, and excellence towards our customer satisfaction.”
Overall, Little App has been a successful startup. It claimed to have over 25,000 merchants across 15 cities offering more than 50,000 live deals across F&B, movies, last-minute hotels, and health & wellness. Little App will continue to serve its user base through the Nearbuy app. The Little App redeem voucher is also a unique feature that is not found in all its competitors. The Little App customer care is also very helpful in finding out the best deals in the town.
The founders of Little app are Manish Chopra and Satish Mani.
What is Little App?
Little App is a hyper-local deals discovery platform connecting customers and merchants across services like restaurants, spas, salons, activities, etc. It helps customers discover services and offers at their favorite offline stores.
How to use Little App?
Little app free download and not paid. Once the user installs the app on their device, they can launch the app and check out the eight categories of deals. After checking the categories, the user can look for Little App promo code and referral code to then avail of discounts and offers.
How does Little App work?
The search platform allows the user to access the best deals for restaurants, movies, salons and spas, and things to do . The customer can browse through a wide range of Little App deals across all platforms near them with the help of the little app nearby.
How does Little App make money?
Little App sells deals and offers of different outlets (events, restaurants, spas etc) and charges a commission on every deal sold.
Where is Little App available?
The Little App website and app are available on both android and apple devices.
What are the competitors of Little App?
The competitors of Little app are CouponDunia, MagicPin, Deal Chaat, Cash Karo, and Coupon Raja.
