our interview with Navneet Chauhan, CEO of B2B Marketplace khojinINDIA.com, he talks about the company’s revenue streams, the switch to lead generation from a listed and affiliated services model, on competition including China’s B2b Alibaba. We also asked Agarwal about his take on an auction-based model, and a marketplace model like that followed by

Q. What are your key revenue streams?

We create websites, microsites, and catalogs. We do a whole turnkey package deal – designing, hosting, supplying a better list on khojinINDIA, SEO. We submit the websites to numerous enterprise directories. So that is a subscription package deal wherein you know the website designing and web hosting component has emerged as minuscule in phrases of sales. The general public comes to khojinINDIA not to have a 4-web page microsite designed for Rs. 25,000, but because they see that there is a fee in listing that they get on khojinINDIA B2B worldwide marketplace at the e-commerce platform.

Q. What kind of value adds are you offering on top of that?

On pinnacle of that, there are natural advertising offerings that are more of a top list, premium listing, banner advertising, and marketing on a relevant class, special list on product seek. So these are value introduced merchandise; We also have masses and heaps of micro product-unique portals for apparel, Plastic, chemical substances, and many others. So we offer sectional sponsorship. We are slowly and slowly transferring from a listing fee primarily based model to a lead-based model. Our preliminary version constantly carries a minimal commitment, in which we gave a minimal assure – in case you are spending Rs.25,000 with us please expect at least 50 true inquiries in 12 months from the internet site. We’ve found out that some clients have matured enough to be able to visit pay consistent with click or pay according to lead version as nicely.

Q. So how do you look at it going forward now?

We released a purchase lead section, a commercial enterprise prospect finder section, that’s broadly speaking for the lead era section. So is a mix of things – a cataloging plus primary list fee that comes underneath subscription sales, pure list expenses which can be at the top of basic list fees that could be premium list and paid list and banner advertising. Then there’s a pay in keeping with lead sales. In case you see then five-6 years again eighty-90% of our enterprise turned into merely cataloging and subscription sales simplest 5-10% become natural list price and advertising and marketing price. These days 60-70% is cataloging sales and about 30% comes from merely listing and premium listing price…you know those are experienced internet and khojinINDIA customers, and going forward I think that pay per lead would also become a great bite of that.

Q. From a listing based model, do you see yourself launching a marketplace like E-Lance and facilitate the entire transaction?

As Per me I don’t think that we are able to move to a transactional version inside the instant or medium time period. , but if we take the fundamental idea where we will join the customers and sellers, without the cash component – it’s the pay according to lead model. That’s within the trade offer segment at khojinINDIA.

Q. What about auctions?

As I stated, the price discovery does now not appear, though we tried an auction model in past due 2019. What occurs is that B2B is barely special than B2C – it’s now not an off the shelf product, no one desires an off the shelf product. Most people have their own sizing, colors, best parameters and the offers aren’t in few thousand rupees however mostly in few Lac Rupees. Buyers and sellers have to speak 5-10 instances earlier than they could decide a fee. For example, if there’s a suggestion to buy 50,000 pairs of socks – there a person is going to make a pitch that i can offer you one range in 30 days for 1$, some other for $1.25 or this type for $1.Three and many others, depending on fine and length. So the charge discovery would not take place on a B2B marketplace trade. But i can facilitate purchaser and dealer discovery, and whether they do enterprise depends on their requirements.

Q. If you’re looking at a lead generation model, and your primary clients are the sellers – the number of leads would go down in a downtime.

Yes, but then at the same time the requirements for these leads would go up. Then the sellers who might not have been using the Internet previously but going around the world to trade fairs would look at the possibility of using the Internet to sell their product. See the Internet finds you unknown buyers, unknown markets. We ourselves as a company have discovered some market possibilities which were strong on the internet.

Q. Like what?

Like tour. We had never ever even focussed on the journey being a B2B employer. We’d have made some journey websites by way of chance and we discovered that the one’s customers were greater happy and at that point in time we started doing lots of marketing on tour and a giant quantity of sales commenced coming from it. A bit greater later, in phrases of the carrier we determined that packers and movers became warm. Engineering items additionally commenced doing very well. So we maintain coming across new classes where providers and buyers discover every difference. The Internet throws you unknown possibilities, just through trying it out. I am certain that in this form of a downturn lot of suppliers could come to the internet to attempt out different things. That won’t compensate fully for the full market loss that came about due to the downturn but it needs up making a new marketplace for us.

Q. Talking about the competition, your success depends on the buyer base that you have. Won’t an ALIBABA come in with a fairly large global database of buyers whereas you would come with a large database of sellers?

Alibaba comes in equally with a large number of suppliers from India – that is their strength and weakness both. Indian suppliers typically do not want to compete with Chinese suppliers, and they will have to do that on an Alibaba type of platform. The whole world has been looking at China as their supplier, which is why Alibaba has done so well. If the buyer preference changes, they will start logging on more to khojinINDIA more because they know that AliBaba provides chinese suppliers.

Q. But then it becomes important for Alibaba to market their services in India better to develop their supplier base. Then there’s going to be competition for you to get suppliers

Obviously, and if you really see the market size is very large. It’s a trillion-dollar trade opportunity. By the entry of Alibaba, the supplier base will be more educated – more competition is more market development. If you see the example of Naukri.com and Monster both are existing together, and both are equally big. If you see China, it has an equally large player called Global Sources, Made in China, EC21 and there might be 200 smaller ones.

Q. So what about TradeIndia then?

I cannot comment on them. They are primarily a print company, while we are primarily an Internet company. See when I started I was the only 1/10th of their size. We have been consistently growing at a 50-60% rate and they must be growing at a slower rate. They must have their own set of market priorities and choices. Growth of anything below 40% is not acceptable for me, and I don’t know if in any of these years they would have achieved any of these minimum figures. So TradeIndia has always been a good follower of ours on the Internet.

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Q. When talking to customers during the initial stages, what did you pitch to them?

We pitched to them a website and a business through the website – we know the Internet will be used to generate business through searching from Google and Yahoo. There were very few Indian websites at that point in time – if you searched for a “Restaurant in Delhi”, Nirula’s website, or “leather exporter in India”, our websites will show up high on search. But as more websites were created over the years in India, search engines began tracking more sites – newer and smaller websites. At the same time, the market place caught on.

Today the traffic mix for the websites we make is 60-70% through khojinINDIA.com and 20-30% direct, while earlier it used to be 10-20% through Indiamart.com and 80% direct. So over the years, things have changed the market place has started gaining momentum and stickiness. But, from day one, we were committed to making business websites for the purpose of generating business, and not just for using it on a visiting card – whether directly through search, or indirectly through khojinINDIA.com.