Shop smart! Let this online platform get you the best price

Getting a fair deal Sulakshan Kumar (left) and Sitakant Ray, Founders and Directors, 

MySmartPrice. PV SIVAKUMAR 

BL 29 July 2014

MySmartPrice also gives best product options on your mobile

With a laptop each and Internet connection, Sulakshan Kumar and Sitakanta Ray tried what they believed was a smart idea, in 2010. They launched an online portal to get consumers the best price.

In just under four years, the duo is close to realising that the venture – MySmartPrice Web Technology – indeed is living up to its name. The site, mysmartprice.com, compares prices for products across categories and attracts 12 million visitors a month, with the numbers growing.

“We pitch as marketer or lead generator for companies. Users from our site have a higher conversion rate to product buying,” says Sulakshan Kumar. The team is now 40-strong and the venture has sharpened its core engineering. In their mid-30s, the first generation entrepreneurs were batch mates at NIT, Rourkela. They met again during their Oracle days in Hyderabad. During long chats, they narrowed down on the online space to start their entrepreneurial journey. The two did a trial run for a few months after quitting their jobs towards the end of 2010.

“In hindsight, I can say that choosing e-commerce for our entrepreneurship was purely based on a gut feeling that it was the sunrise sector,” recollects Sulakshan. He worked in Oracle and Infosys, while Sitakanta Ray, who handles the engineering side, studied at IIM Bangalore, worked in ICICI Bank, before coming to Oracle.

Products of choice

What does MySmartPrice offer to the customer? Instead of going to 15 stores, a customer can visit the site using a mobile. The site gives options on products of choice. It also provides coupons, offers, free gifts without hiding information.

In the first few years, the focus was on electronics and books categories, but now plans to list almost everything sold in India. “Our efforts have led to creating a separate portal for fashion stuff,” says Sulakshan.

They are buoyed by the ₹6-crore funding they got from Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners in December 2013. “This has given us the right footing to take off and establish in the market,” he says. The two VC firms had invested ₹2 crore in 2011 in MySmartPrice.

The platform allows users peep into the best products ranging from mobiles, electronics, computers, fashion and lifestyle, cameras, books, appliances and personal care. Its price comparison engine enables users find the best price, deals and offers from major e-commerce stores.

At present 45 per cent of the traffic comes from mobile devices. We provide users access to 10 million products from 100-plus online stores, explains Sulakshan. The prices of products fluctuate a lot on online (sometimes 5-8 times). “Our job is to get the customer the best prices. Therefore, we started the trend of putting out price alerts,” he says.

Revenue model

MySmartPrice’s gets paid for every successful transaction done through the site. With conversion rate going up, revenues are also increasing. It has seen a 100 per cent growth in enquiries and conversion rates. Its earnings have jumped from ₹30 lakh in December to ₹1 crore in June, with over ₹30-crore worth products sold through customer transactions,.