Nearbuy Success Story
Nearbuy success story Owing to a lack of time and fair prices, everybody nowadays prefers online shopping. The eCommerce industry was last valued at $22 billion in 2018 and is estimated to be worth around $200 billion by 2027. Thus, the growth that the eCommerce industry is seeing is beyond comparison. This outstanding growth that the industry has seen and the exponential growth that is predicted for the industry could only be possible with the range of successful players and the pioneers of the idea. Moreover, the e-commerce players have rapidly grown over the past couple of years to become hyper-local entities to serve their customers better.
Hre’s a look at Nearbuy.com and its Founders and Team, Mission and Vision, Startup Story, Business Model, Revenue Model, Growth, Funding and Investors, Competitors, Challenges Faced, Future Plans, and more.
Nearbuy – Company Highlights
- Company Name-Nearbuy.com
- Former Name-Groupon India
- Headquarters-New Delhi, India
- Parent Company-Paytm
- Industry-Hyperlocal eCommerce
- Founded-2015
- Founder-Ankur Warikoo, Snehesh Mitra, Ankur Sarawagi, Sumeet Kapur, Sachin Kapur, Ravi Shankar
- Funding-$37.2 mn (December 2021)
- Revenue-$4.45 mn (Rs 33.28 crore in FY18)
- Areas Served-India
- Website-www.nearbuy.com
Nearbuy – Latest News
As of September 2019, Ankur Warikoo, the co-founder and ex-CEO resigned from Nearbuy. Warikoo announced that he would step down as CEO of Nearbuy in November, handing over the reins to co-founders Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra. Shankar, who was previously the COO of Nearbuy, will take over as CEO, with Mitra taking over as COO of the Paytm-owned firm. Warikoo will remain a shareholder and member of the company’s board of directors.
About Nearbuy and How it Works?
Nearbuy.com (Nearbuy India Private Limited) is India’s first hyper-local online services platform, built to let consumers and local merchants connect and interact along with helping them get the best deals possible. The company was first founded as SoSasta and was eventually acquired by Nasdaq-listed Groupon Inc in 2011. The company then changed its name to Groupon India in 2013. Finally, the company was named Nearbuy in 2015 when Sequoia Capital India and Ankur Warikoo bought majority stakes in the firm. Ankur Warikoo has no longer been the CEO since November 2019 when Ravi Shankar was appointed for the position.
You can download the Nearbuy app from the Google Play Store or the iTunes Store to discover, purchase, and share exciting experiences around you.
Nearbuy – Mission and Vision
The mission statement of Nearbuy says, “We at nearbuy.com are taking hyperlocal ecommerce where it’s never gone before. So, if you thrive on the thrill of operating in a world of firsts, you belong at nearbuy.com.”
Nearbuy – Founders and Team
Ankur Warikoo, Ankur Sarawagi, Sumeet Kapur, Sachin Kapur, Ravi Shankar, and Snehesh Mitra are the founders of Nearbuy, which was founded in 2010.
Ankur Sarawagi
Another co-founder of Nearbuy, Ankur Sarawagi is an IIT Bombay alumnus from where he completed his BTech and MTech in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Integrated Manufacturing along with a Minor in Operations Research. Starting from Bain & Company, Ankur joined Groupon as the Director of Sales. However, it was only a brief stint that Ankur had with Groupon, eventually moving on to co-found Nearbuy. Ankur is currently serving as the Vice President, International Growth & Managing Director of WeddingWire India at The Knot Worldwide, which came into being as a result of the merger of WeddingWire and The Knot. Sarawagi has also served as the VP & Country Manager at WeddingWire.
Snehesh Mitra
Snehesh graduated from IIT Kharagpur in Electric and Electronics Engineering. Mitra was the co-founder Urban Blocks and Nearbuy along with being the CTO of the former and CTO, COO, and CPO of the latter organization. Mitra is currently serving as a Product Manager of Google. Along with these, Snehesh had also previously worked with Algo Works, Mobicules Systems, NDS Limited, Headstrong, HCL Technologies, and more in numerous key designations.
Sumeet Kapur
Sumeet Kapur is also known as the co-founder of Nearbuy. Kapur was a student of Delhi University from where he completed Bcom. (Hons.) before moving on to The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and completing his CA degree. In his career, Sumeet has been the Co-founder and Director of Finance at Edutopper, CFO and Regional Financial Director of Emerging Markets (APAC), Co-founder and CFO at Nearbuy.com, Co-founder at Inflexion Point and is currently serving as a Founder and CEO at Wellcure.com.
Nearbuy – Startup Story
Nearbuy was formed or rather named in 2015. The company was founded as SoSasta in 2009, but it was acquired in 2011 by the Chicago-based parent of Nearbuy, Groupon Inc., in 2011 with an aim to begin operations in India. It then changed its name to Groupon India in 2013.
Ankur Warikoo and Ravi Shankar worked for Groupon as executives, with the former leading the company after the founders of SoSasta left.
The purchase price for both companies was set at INR 272.31 crore. Following the acquisition, the company gained access to a large pool of capital along with a large Paytm userbase. It, however, struggled to make an impact because sales were unable to keep up with expenses. The company had total revenue of INR 33.28 crore in FY18, with losses of INR 49.11 crore.
Nearbuy – Name, Logo and Tagline
Nearbuy’s old name is Groupon India. After the rebranding of Nearbuy in August 2015, Groupon became a minority stakeholder in nearbuy.com.
“The Lifestyle App” is the tagline of Nearbuy. Nearbuy comes in and says “Let us give you a discount for visiting the place through us.”
Nearbuy – Business and Revenue Model
Nearbuy is an Online-to-Offline services ecommerce platform, which is currently owned and funded by Paytm, established to connect the consumers with India’s largest network of local businesses. nearbuy.com makes it easy for the consumers to discover their worlds along with helping them avail exclusive deals across categories such as restaurants, spas, salons, movie halls, retail stores, amusement parks and more.
The key highlights of Nearbuy business and revenue model are as follows:
- Nearbuy makes a contract with local stores and service-based businesses such as spas and salons.
- Retailers promise to lower their rates in exchange for being featured on the website.
- Nearbuy makes the majority of its profits by charging a fee of 2% to 25% of the sale price.
- Retailers receive a substantial amount of revenue in exchange for providing such steep discounts on the website.
- They often accept advertisements on the website, increasing the company’s revenue.
Nearbuy – Revenue and Growth
In terms of sales, FY18 was another low year for the firm. Though the company’s overall revenue rose by just 4.9% from INR 31.73 crore in FY17 to INR 33.28 crore in FY18, its basic turnover decreased by 16.4% from INR 28.22 crore to INR 23.58 crore. This simply suggests that the minuscule rise in sales was not due to the company’s main operations. Instead, it leaned on a 2.76X increase in other revenue, which increased from INR 3.52 crore to INR 9.7 crore.
Nearbuy.com claims to be present in more than 33 cities across 18+ categories. Furthermore, the company has more than 68,000 merchants to deal with across 100,000+ unique locations. Here’s some more growth highlights of the company, as reported on March 2019:
- It has a monthly active users count of 3 million
- It receives around 7.5 million monthly visits
- Nearbuy app has been downloaded by 4.9 million users
- Nearbuy has 68,000+ merchant outlets
- It has a market share of 88% in India
Nearbuy – Competitors
Top competitors of Nearbuy are:
- Gmarket
- Magicpin
- Grofers India Pvt
- Shopee
- Blibli
- Amazon India
- Swiggy
- CashKaro
- LivingSocial
Nearbuy – Challenges Faced
The biggest obstacle, according to Ankur, the former CEO of Nearbuy, was to build the group, to which Nearbuy belongs. Users would mistakenly think of the business as a deal and discount platform, which is exactly what Groupon was. The mission of Nearbuy is to put the offline world online in a way that allows users to discover, buy, and save.
Simply informing consumers that they can purchase their favorite restaurants, spas, salons, entertainment zones, hotels, brands, and other services online and then walk in to consume them while saving money is a huge challenge in and of itself. Few people get it, but the majority do not. They don’t consider it a normal part of their lives.
“I often say this internally – our job at Nearbuy is not to grow the company, rather to build a completely new way for Indian consumers to explore the offline world which was a big task,” says Ankur.
Nearbuy – Future Plans
Nearbuy expects revenue of INR 255.99 crore and a net profit of INR 17.73 crore by 2022-23. The estimated sales, according to Warikoo, are reasonable and vary from the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV, or total value of merchandise), which is much higher.
“We are capitalized and on a growth expansion mode. As long as we are unit economics positive, we can manage our fixed costs with the investment raised out of this merger. The plan is to grow this number to 250,000 in three years. We have a maximum available universe of roughly around 350,000 merchants” says Warikoo
Warikoo claims that discretionary spending among Indian consumers has increased by more than doubling to 7% of individual income over the last decade.
Nearbuy – FAQs
What does Nearbuy do?
Nearbuy.com (Nearbuy India Private Limited) is India’s first hyper-local online platform, allowing consumers and local merchants to connect and interact. Nearbuy.com makes it possible for you to enjoy fine dining, unwind at world-class spas, or simply get to know your city better.
Who founded Nearbuy?
Nearbuy was founded by Ankur Warikoo, Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra in 2015.
Which company owns Nearbuy?
Paytm owns Nearbuy.
How does Nearbuy make money?
Nearbuy did not charge its merchant anything for setup. Customers are only charged a fee for each purchase they make. Depending on the popularity and category, the commission ranges between 2% and 25%.
Which companies do Nearbuy compete with?
Top competitors of Nearbuy are Gmarket, Magicpin, Paytm, Grofers India Pvt, Shopee, Blibli, Amazon India, Swiggy, CashKaro, and LivingSocial.