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With the advent of 3G/ 4G spectrums the concept of online buying and
selling has been revolutionized. “Bech De” became the most trending line
in Pakistan within no time. OLX Pakistan has given a massive platform to
the nation to interact for buying and selling the used items as per
their convenience and rates. In a short passage of time, OLX Pakistan
has managed to capture the classified market by offering free
classifieds; where buyers have the option to choose the right items and
sellers can post their ads offering information to potential buyers.
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The traditional newspapers classified ads strategy still prevails, but
many consumers have moved to the online classified sites that offer them
instant results. OLX Pakistan has witnessed tremendous growth in the
last few years due to the constant increase in the customer base. This
brand offers a perfect online platform for buyers and sellers where they
can select desired products and negotiate the rates accordingly.
The trend of classifieds has certainly transformed in the last five
years as consumers are becoming aware of the advantages attached to the
use of online classified sites. Many sellers and buyers have also
adopted OLX Pakistan where they can handle their business in a different
manner dealing with the consumers. Promotional campaigns on YouTube and
TV offer better information to the consumers on how they can utilize
this platform to ease the process of buying and selling.
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Bilal Bajwa, General Manager of OLX Pakistan speaks about the
achievements, current scenario of online classifieds, and future plans,
five years after it’s launched in the country.
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Q1) Enlighten us about your association with OLX
Pakistan. How it all did start?
After graduating from Aitcheson in 1995 I went to University of Texas,
Austin for my undergrad. After two years at Enron as an Analyst, a year
at Dynegy as Senior Analyst and then a year at Nestle as Brand Manager,
I went for further education to University of California, Berkeley. From
2006-2009 I worked at ZS Associates as a Management Consultant, then as
General Manager Studios at Zynga from 2009-2014. I joined the Naspers
Group in 2014 focusing on emerging markets. In 2016 I was appointed as
Country Manager of OLX Pakistan.
Q2) What is the ideology behind the commencement
of operations of OLX Pakistan?
In Pakistan, 6.9 million people have PKR 14,441 Crore worth of goods
lying around in their houses. This presents an enormous potential for a
used goods economy that was previously being catered to only by
traditional media that are slow and inefficient. OLX was launched in
Pakistan to capitalize on this need for a transparent and liquid
platform where buyers and sellers from all segment of the population
would come together to communicate without any barriers. The ideology
was to improve people’s lives by bringing them together for win-win
exchanges.
Q3) How do you see competition in some of your
categories and what is the benefit being a horizontal brand?
OLX is the only horizontal classifieds website in the country meaning it
deals in a wide range of product categories. It is also the #1
marketplace and #1 app in shopping category with 500k people using the
platform daily. Our scale allows us to serve entire Pakistan effectively
and it greatly improves the response rates for ads posted on our
platform.
I personally welcome all forms of competition in the tech sector because
I believe it plays a vital role in maturing the market and educating the
masses and sowing the seeds for a tech revolution in the country.
Q4) What challenges are faced by OLX Pakistan in
the current scenario?
Pakistan is a population of more than 200 Million people. Internet
penetration and audience maturity was one of the key challenges that we
faced during our launch i.e. 5 years back. With the advent of 3g/4g,
Internet is now getting widely distributed which is fueling the growth
for all internet and technology brands. The population with 3g/4g is
currently at 38Million users, there is still a lot of potential for
growth here.
Q5) Talking about the conventional classified
business like that of Dawn or Jang, do you believe the online
classifieds can take over the major chunk in the industry? What holds
for it in the future?
Online classifieds have already taken over the classifieds industry of
the country because they provide greater efficiency and convenience. OLX
is Pakistan’s number one classifieds platform, larger than all online
and offline platforms.
Q6) How do you check the credibility of the
classified advertisements received on regular basis? Is there a certain
model for that?
A dedicated team of 25 of professionals constantly keep an eye on
advertisements at all hours of the day. They keep a look out for any
fraudulent, abusive or non-ethical advertisements. We’ve also added
mobile verification and only post an ad after we receive confirmation.
Apart from in-house efforts to make the platform safe, OLX also educates
users on how to conduct transactions in a safe and secure manner.
Q7) Has OLX Pakistan adaptive to technological
changes and market conditions?
OLX is constantly evolving with the changing tech landscape and market
conditions. For example, in order to guarantee safety and security of
transactions for our users, we launched mobile verification through OTP
in 2015. In future versions of our mobile app, we also plan to introduce
proximity search and buyer verification. This April we are also
launching “Featured Ads” which will allow users to give greater
visibility to their ads and hence sell their products faster. Keeping in
view market demand, we recently launched two new product categories
namely “Business & Industrial’ and “Agriculture & Food” to allow for the
exchange of industrial and agricultural equipment.
Q8) How will you evaluate the market growth trend
since the time OLX Pakistan entered the market?
These past five years have been both exciting and challenging for us.
Pakistani market has proven itself to be one of the most receptive
audiences to adopt new trends.
OLX is Pakistan’s 1st and No.1 online classifieds marketplace in all
categories. After launching its first TV Commercial in 2012, OLX
Pakistan has grown to become the leading online classifieds platform in
Pakistan. The brand growth was fueled by heavy marketing investment in
Pakistan which was well complemented by the love of Pakistani people who
adopted the use of OLX in selling and buying things from cars to
furniture, property to mobiles, electronics to pets and a variety of
other categories. The OLX app continues to be the number one classifieds
app in Pakistan with 9000+ daily app downloads. As of March 2017, OLX
receives daily traffic of 500,000+ buyers and sellers creating 19
Million page views every day, 30,000+ new ads and 18,000+ unique
sellers. This is significant growth when compared to numbers in 2013
with a 200% growth in ads and 160% growth in sellers. People from over
118 cities in Pakistan use OLX and over 50,000 conversations take place
between buyers and sellers ever day. Today, an ad is posted on OLX every
three seconds and 70% of these ads are able to find a buyer within a
week.
Q9) What are the future plans that you like to
implement on your website?
A new and improved mobile app, continuous improvement in our user
experience, a larger and more inclusive OLX community, and most
importantly the launch of featured ads which will allow our users to
sell 3 times faster. We will be improving our user verification and ad
search criteria in the coming year along with making our property and
cars vertical more specialized.
Q10) What is your country specific strategy of
success for this region? How is it differentiated or in line with the
overall international OLX strategy?
OLX stands for win win exchanges globally – our mission is to make our
users successful, empower them and to open for them a world of
opportunities that were not accessible before.
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