Quikr bets big on intercity service

Hyderabad: Quikr, an online classified advertising platform, is now betting big on intercity service that enables its users to buy pre-owned products from other cities across India.

Called Quikr Doorstep and launched sometime back, the intercity service is a consumer-to-consumer platform that is expected to drive the growth of Quikr’s business in coming years. The unique feature of this service is that Quikr handles the transportation of the products and gets them delivered at the doorstep of the buyers across more than 900 cities.

“Through this service, Quikr users (buyers and sellers) have started experiencing higher supply and demand in many categories. For instance, over 30 per cent transactions in the mobile category on Quikr are happening across cities,” Anurag Saran, Head of Goods and CPO, Quikr, told The Hans India.

Pointing out that supply constraint was the biggest reason for high demand of intercity buy and sell, he said: “High demand products like iPhone 6S might not be available in the same city. There are also geography-specific products like furniture and home décor which offer huge potential for the growth of this service,” he explained.

According to him, this new service offers an opportunity for people to buy unique collectibles like vintage clocks and coins which are not easy to find in the same city.

But how does the company plan to monetise the Quikr Doorstep? The company is looking at various ways to monetise this service. “We have three monetisation channels which include premium listings, commission on the transaction value and shipping fee based on the size of the item and the location of the buyer and seller,” Saran explained.

By P Madhusudhan Reddy