How to Start a Business on OLX and QUIKR in India

How to Start a Business on OLX and QUIKR in India

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How to Start a Business onOLX and QUIKR in IndiaHow to Start a Business onOLX and QUIKR in India
How to Start a Business onOLX and QUIKR in India

We switch on our television sets to watch a program or a cricket match and see a host of advertisements. Advertisements today seem to be taking up more screen space and time than the program or the cricket match. Today we see a lot of advertisements of e-commerce websites selling everything from books to clothes to refrigerators. Along with websites selling things, there is also an increase in the number of websites letting us, the customers, to sell things. Known as ‘classified advertisements websites’, these are increasingly becoming popular and even reaching out to the small towns and districts with the advent of smart phones and internet in India.

We all must have come across the famous Kapil Sharma ad series ‘OLX pebech de’ or Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh endorsing ‘Quikr cars’. While we somehow understand how e-commerce websites like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal work, we fail to understand how a website which allows customer A to put up his product for sale and customer B to buy that product earns profit when the clear gainers are only customers A and B.

OLX was founded in 2006 by Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford. It now operates in 45 countries and is the largest online classified ads company in India, Brazil and Poland. It was primarily founded as an alternative to Craigslist to the people outside USA. In 2011, OLX began advertising in India and by 2014 1.5 million page views were generated for the website.  Because of the big promotional campaign on TV, radio and newspapers- OLX has become slang verb for ‘selling in India’ and almost everyone knows about OLX in India. If you want to sell anything, you can post free ads on OLX and can contact prospective buyers for your used products. On similar lines as that of OLX, Quikr was founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas and is an Indian classified advertising platform. It has listings in over 1000 cities in India and as of 2013 it was reported to have 12 million listings.

  • How to start a similar business in India?

1. Step 1- Finding a suitable target market –

There are a lot of classifieds websites which are opened daily in India but do not run successfully due to heavy traffic on the Internet. Therefore, the first and most important step is to find a target market where competition and traffic is less so that you can rank your website better on Google search because in areas where the target market is very competitive, it is difficult to take on big websites like OLX and Quikr. You can start by focusing on a particular small town or a particular area of a big city in order to increase traffic on your website.

2. Step 2- Creating an amazing and visually appealing website-

After the target market is decided upon, your second step is to create a website. The website has to be made with the latest technologies and the need for creating a visually appealing website cannot be stressed enough. Take a simple example: Why the mall culture is on the increase as opposed to the local shops where clothes were stacked up in boxes and it was upon the shopkeeper’s discretion to show us what we wanted. In malls, all the items are on display and it is left to the customers’ discretion which one to choose and which one to reject. The visual appeals work wonders. On similar grounds, the classified website has to be created in such a manner that it appeals to the viewers, the various items are properly categorized and arranged, it has an amazing search engine optimization and navigating within the site is easy. The website should also be user-friendly.

3. Step 3- Registering your business-

After creation of the website, you have to register your business as a legal entity in India. There are a lot of options of registering your startups as a legal entity but in the preliminary stage it is always advisable to choose a simple and cost effective cheap legal entity. Sole Proprietorship Firm is one of the best ways of testing your ideas in the classifieds arena if you are the single owner of the website. Here, you need just one shop act license or a service tax registration certification and then you have to open a current bank account in the name of your classifieds brand name.

However, if you have a partner in the business, you can draft a simple partnership deed and then register your website as a legal entity in India.

4. Step 4- Creating high quality content on the website-

A visually appealing website is necessary, but just like the popular saying- A book cannot be judged by its cover, similarly, without content no amount of fancy pictures and ads will attract viewers to your website. The products available have to be categorically sorted and numerous sections should be made to make searching easy and less time consuming. Various filters and sorting techniques options must be made available so that the customer is able to customize his searches according to his wishes and wants.

5. Step 5- Creating revenue-

Website is created and traffic is also generated but how to make money? To keep the website running, the last and the most important step is that you have to monetize your website for revenues. There are several ways to earn money from these classified websites:

  • Feature Ads
    • Move Ads to Top Listing
    • Advertisement Banner
    • Premium Membership
    • Affiliate Links with Google Ad sense
    • Pay to Post

If you want to apply for Start Up India registration, then kindly contact the professionals of AapkaConsultant.com or Click here.

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