Online shopping websites are quite active nowadays. However, most people still prefer to purchase phones and tablets from local sellers. Many websites provide useful comparisons of phone and tablet prices but they only include online stores. What if a website could help us compare prices from different offline stores, along with online stores? Pricebhai is here to do that.
About Pricebhai and the story behind
Pricebhai.in is an online price comparison platform that also provides a location based search engine. Pricebhai enables the user to find the best price for any mobile phone based on the specified location. For now, phones and tablets are the only categories though the team intends to add more soon. The Startup collects data from 13 major online stores. It provides the best price along with delivery charges, coupon codes and delivery time. As for offline comparison, the user can compare prices as per his/her location. Offline stores can update their prices on the website with the interface provided to them. All the stores on Pricebhai are verified.Currently, Rajkot,Morbi,Ahmedabad,Jamnagar,Bhavnagar and Surat are supported for offline location based price comparison.
Journey so far and challenges faced
The website was launched on 12 November 2012. The Startup gets about 30K visitors every month. Its priority is to help local stores in getting more customers. Recently, a customer purchased a phone from an offline store registered on Pricebhai! As for challenges faced, Rohan Baghdev (founder, Pricebhai) says, “There are many challenges. But main challenge was for me to convince offline dealers. JustDial dominates local market. So I had a hard time explaining them difference between them and us. I used to hear just one sentence – “JustDial gets us 100 inquires everyday. We also expect same number form you.” But now they have started to understand our importance as PriceBhai is passing genuine leads to them.”
The team, competition and future plans
Ronak Bhagdev is the sole founder of Pricebhai. A chemistry graduate, he has been building websites since he was 18. In 2008, he launched a Web design company in Morbi. He has worked on 350+ web projects. Despite being a techie, he is quite good at marketing and sales. Along with Rohan, 3 designers are involved with the project. The Pricebhai team soon intends to establish itself outside Gujarat. As for competition, Rohan says, “We have concentrated on our User interface unlike others. We listen to our visitors. This way we get repeated users. And also we are not a regular price comparison website. We are also offering location based price search engine too. There aren’t many players in this space.”
TTP’s Take
Although Pricebhai’s intentions are good, the price comparison area is really heating up in terms of competition. There are well-funded established players in the online price comparison and PriceBaba has put it’s feet firmly in offline price comparison and is expanding really well. The players in this field have also gone mobile first, and have pivoted to meet the mobile crowd first. So, although the concept of Pricebhai is good – we think unless the startup pivots on an immediate basis and concentrates on one single USP, it will be tough to sustain. We wish Ronak all the very best!
