How does Nearbuy work ?

Nearbuy.com, one of India’s favorite lifestyle apps/websites, is a local e-commerce company based out of India. It allows shoppers (or customers) to discover, buy, and save on merchants near to them. One of India’s leading players, Nearbuy, was founded in 2015 by Ankur Warikoo. However, In 2019, Ankur Warikoo resigned from Nearbuy and handed over the reins to co-founders Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra. Previously, Ravi Shankar has been the COO of the company and now he has taken over as the CEO of Nearbuy. While Ankur Warikoo still remains a shareholder and member of the company’s board of directors.

Nearbuy has now become a Paytm-funded tech-product company offering various services through its e-commerce platform which connects customers with India’s largest network of local businesses. In this article today, we will be diving deep into the Nearbuy business model and know the work proceedings of the company to answer the most in-demand questions arising in our reader’s mind- “How does Nearbuy work?” and “How does Nearbuy make money?”. We will try to answer each and every question of our dear readers in detail. Do read it till the end to get the most out of it.

Nearbuy Business Model

With 3 million monthly active users, 7.5 million monthly visits, 4.9 million app downloads, 160+ employees, 88% market share in India, and 68,000+ live merchant outlets, Nearbuy has successfully occupied a commendable place in the Indian market. In December 2017, Nearbuy merged with Little App, in the course of raising fresh capital from Paytm. As a part of the agreement, Nearbuy and Little App merged together under the leadership of Co-founder and CEO Ankur Warikoo while Paytm acquired majority ownership of the business. Sequoia India and Groupon are still the stakeholders of the merged entity.

Nearbuy is a platform that offers discount codes free of cost to the consumer. But how does it provide discounts without charging any money? Let’s understand this in detail.

• Nearbuy makes a deal with local retailers and service providers.
• These retailers and service providers offer discounts to get listed on the platform.
• When a customer visits those retailers or company owners through the platform’s reference, Nearbuy makes money by charging 2 to 25% of the sale amount as a commission.
• On one hand, local retailers offer huge discounts to customers but on the other hand, they increase the volume of sales too.
• Nearbuy also offers ads to be displayed on the website/app which adds to the revenues of the company.

The platform is very popular discounts and coupons providing website in India that offers amazing deals throughout the year. To get the coupons, you just need to visit the website/app and select the location. Then, you’ll be shown all the offers available around your location. You can easily browse through all the amazing offers or simply search for things to do, eat, or buy. That’s it! These are the three simple steps to dive into the ocean of discounts and coupons of your nearby shops.

Now, to avail of this offer price, you will have to pay the discounted price on the website/app itself and show the order number/confirmation code to the vendor when you purchase the same item through the platform. With this code, you can even end up saving about 50% or more on retail prices.

Customer segmentation:

As Nearbuy has tapped the basic human need, there’s no way of business falling. It can be used by anyone around the country who wants to make use of Nearbuy without taking into consideration the thought that- “Is there really a requirement to use this service?”.

Every time a customer visits a shop or service provider, he/she looks for discount/ coupon codes to get the best service cost-effectively. For them, Nearbuy is the solution each time.

Even though everyone can use this service, there are still segments of the population who are more likely to use this platform:

1. College students
2. Sensualists
3. Freshers
4. Party animals
5. Travelers

Nearbuy is an Indian company. Here’s the list of all the office locations of the company:

1. Delhi: Building No. 22, Mezzanine Floor, Pushp Vihar Commercial Complex, LSC Madangir, Saket, New Delhi – 110062
2. Bangalore: Ground Floor, Nova Miller Building, Municipal No. 333, Thimmaiah Road, Bangalore – 560052
3. Mumbai: Awfis 3rd Floor, Modi House, Near Fun Republic, Opp Barbeque Nation, Andheri West, Mumbai – 400053
4. Kolkata: 2nd Floor, Udayachal, 9, Rowdon Street, Kolkata – 700017
5. Hyderabad: Plot No 682, 3rd Floor, Babukhan Rasheed Plaza, Road No 36, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, Telangana – 500033
6. Jaipur: 510, Neelkanth Complex, 22 Godam Circle, Jaipur- 302001
7. Pune: Office No 11/12, 1st Floor Choice Arcade ‘D’ Building, Sub Plot 4 to 8, T.P.S. Sangamwadi, Dhole Patil, Pune 411001
8. Chennai: Door No. 103, First Floor, Velachery Main Road, Chennai – 600042
9. Chandigarh: Berkeley Square, Cabin no.14, Second Floor, Plot No. 24, Industrial Area, Phase I, Chandigarh
10. Goa: 4th Floor, Adwalpalkar’s ‘Smit Vandan’, near Taj Vivanta, Above IndusInd Bank, St Inez Junction, St. Inez, Panjim, Goa – 403001
11. Gurgaon: First Floor, Vipul Plaza, Suncity, Sector – 54, Gurgaon – 122011

As you can see, Nearbuy has its offices in almost all the major cities of the country which is why it has targeted the major urban customer base in India and is been doing that.

Top Nearbuy competitors

Here is the list of Nearbuy’s top competitors (specifically in India):

1. Swiggy
2. Biba Apparels
3. First Cry
4. Amazon India
5. Grofers India Pvt
6. ShopClues
7. BigBasket
8. GMarket
9. MagicPin
10. Blibli
11. Shopee
12. CashKaro

How does Nearbuy work?

As we have already discussed the Nearbuy Business Model, till now you might have understood the basics of Nearbuy business. Now, we will move on to discuss it in detail and precisely answer the question- “How does Nearbuy work?”. Along with this, you will also get the answer to – “How does Nearbuy make money?”.

Businesses need customers and people want to explore new places around them. Nearbuy acts as a mediator for the two. It gives discounts to people for visiting places through the platform, and you just need to search for the location on the website/ app and simply go to visit the place in person.

Just think, if one wants to spend on a product or service, and someone offers him/her 50% off then why wouldn’t people go for that option which offers them huge discounts?

This is where Nearbuy plays an important role. It fulfilled this particular need of the people looking for products and services nearby. The company has built a successful business around this need. The Nearbuy business model is the real-life example of the fact that: “Once a business fulfills a human need vs want, there is no way the business is going to fail.”

How does Nearbuy make money?

All the services on the platform are free, neither the customers are charged anything for providing discounts nor the retailers are charged anything to get listed on the platform. Then how does Nearbuy makes money to keep going when everything on the platform is free of cost. To answer this, let’s look at Nearbuy’s revenue model.

Nearbuy revenue model

As a discount-providing e-commerce platform, Nearbuy strikes bargaining prices with the companies that register themselves on the platform to provide the best prices to its customers. These prices cut down to as low as 50% off the retail price. So, with such cheap prices, the retailers get orders in huge volumes through Nearbuy.

To avail of the offers present on the platform, the customer has to make the purchase from Nearbuy’s platform and then show the code to the vendor to avail the product/service. When the product/service is availed by the user, Nearbuy transfers the money to the vendor after deducting a commission of around 2 to 25%. Until the product/service is availed by the user, Nearbuy maintains the money as free float and earns interest on it.

Who are Nearbuy’s investors?

According to Crunchbase, Nearbuy has raised total funding of $37.2 million in over 3 financial rounds. The company is funded by 2 investors in total. The two leading investors of Nearbuy are Sequoia Capital India and Black soil. Their latest funding was raised on 3 April 2017 from a Venture-Series Unknown round. At present, the company has been acquired by Paytm.

Conclusion

Nearbuy is a complete package for offline businesses to find their customers and make sales online by listing their services/ products on the platform. In return for huge volume sales, they just have to pay commission to the company for each sale.

That’s all about the Nearbuy business model. We hope that all your queries regarding the Nearbuy company have been solved including, how Nearbuy works, how Nearbuy makes money, and more. If you are willing to launch a discount-providing e-commerce platform similar to Nearbuy, Ncrypted Technologies has the right solutions developed by our capable and innovative workforce. We offer customized and innovative features as per your requirement to let you launch a successful discount-providing e-commerce platform.