Hi Enterpreneurs (Awesome People)
I am planning to launch an product(Website) and after discussion with some of my friends i came to know about MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and The Lean Startup and started implementing it and my website will be ready in a week’s time.
Idea of the website is to help people in deciding what to buy.
EX : If a visitor search “Phones Under 10,000 rupees” i will give them few best phones available in the market around that price”
This kind of websites already available but other websites gives all the phones under 10,000, i will be just giving them only the best available phones (this will be done by researching, reviews, etc) , basically i want to tell people what to buy depends on my research rather than they doing the research to buy.
My friends saying generally a visitor wants to see lot of phones before he decide which one to pick, but i believe if some expert telling you after doing a lot of research etc which phone to buy then i will be happy to buy his recommended products.
Let me know what do you people think of the idea, will it work or i may need to add something to it. Though i am more interested in doing what my idea is but feedback will be helpful and i may get more ideas.
Please let me know if you want to know anything about it.
Darshan Bhambiru
You should start with checking these Posts then search for the Keywords as per your requirement too 🙂
How-to increase online sales? Product Comparison Sites can help you bring in more traffic than you thought!
Most Comprehensive Indian Online Shopping Guide!
Bearshop by Puneet Sharma
Do read the comments therein as well for more Insights !! Welcome to TRHS! Good Luck, Cheers!!
Chetan Kambli
Thanks Darsharn for taking some time and sharing related links on this post…. Hope it will help me…
Yo Gesh Gupta
i have one tip for you:
let the user search the best phone under 10,000 with the help of various product parameters which can be made available to him like for example:
screen size
ram
OS
etc etc……….
if you recommend product X but it has small screen then he may probably switch for product Y coz of size screen irrespective of your recommendation.
Chetan Kambli
Hi Yo Gesh
Thanks for your inputs, I am trying to recommend which phone to buy, its always his decision to choose what to buy, there are many other similar sites who have already put many filters like you mentioned above, though its looking more easy and helpful but am assuming a user will get confused if he has to select all the filters, am trying to save his time but am still trying to figure out how to recommend a best product to buy along with a option where a user can define what he wants to buy….
This website is still in development phase http://www.phonekhoj.com , let me know what do you think about it.
Ananta Kumar Roy
Hello Chetan,
I have little idea about how shortlisting fewer products will convince customers to buy a particular phone just on the pretext of you shortlisting these based on ratings. Also, it becomes very imperative here to mention that what would be your parameters when most of the sites already have the features set as benchmark. With a plethora of sites already in the fray in the market, I believe you need to come up with a USP of your own site. Was just thinking if you could attach your reviews to alll the eCom sites selling phones and not create a separate space for yourself in the market. You could pass on the benefits of reviews to the customers , for example, a customer who reviews products on your site and buys it from any of eCom sites using your reviews, would get some credits which would translate to discounts. The crux of this is that , you are right in realising that we have a lot of players already in the market. And hence as a customer, I wouldn’t be reviewing the same product on different sites. :P. So, be kind to the consumer who reviews it. I have reviewed products and sometimes it feels like a waste of time 🙂
P.S- Your website shows a copyright of the year 2104.hope you are not from the future!!!!
Abey John
With so many product comparison sites already existing in the market what more are you doing to attract the audience?
Price comparison is the lowest common denominator and only caters to the price sensitive market.
Manish Golchha
Checkout http://www.phonecurry.com, doing same what ur doing……..!
Chetan Kambli
Hi Manish
Thanks for the referrence
I know phonecurry.com, presently its same but we have more features to be added to our website. There are other similar websites too who are doing a great job but am trying to build something better then other websites, Other websites are making things complicated and confused for a visitor am trying to avoid that, Lets see how it goes
Chetan Kambli
Hi Ananta
My initial idea was to shortlist fewer products and recommend to the visitor but after talking to friends and discussing with others i came to the point that people want more options and they may not like what we recommend, so i came up with the solution giving them more options but still i will recommend what is best for them that way they will have more options and knows what better.
You are right there are plenty of sites who are doing great and they have backing of investors too but i feel they are trying to mixup and confuse things for a visitor which am trying to avoid, basically am trying to help those who doesnot have technical knowledge and they only have budget in their mind to buy a phone, or may be they want to buy depend on the feature or the brand
There are plenty of sites but am trying to give some unique features to the visitors, sorry i didnot understand what you said above “attach your reviews to all the eCom sites selling phones and not create a separate space for yourself in the market. Passing the benefits to the user who buys from the site do you mean i need to either pay him by cash or offer some discount? , I may add coupon codes section in future on the website, let me know what exactly you meant, Actually am trying to be kind to visitors and save their time by not going to all the review websites,
Thanks for pointing out the 2104, i knew it and already informed the developer….
Chetan Kambli
HI Abey
Thanks for your comment,
Ours is not just an product comparison site but also an product recommendation site, though i agree there are many other websites who are doing this, am trying to offer some unique features to the visitor….
My motivation behind the website is this quote “Facebook was not a first social networking website, google was not a first search engine” But they suceed because of their passion, hardwork and uniqueness
Ananta Kumar Roy
Hello Chetan,
Since you wish to make it easier for the consumer, I pointed out attaching or more correctly “using” the reviews on your site universally on all eCom sites.Each site has its own reviews and this is what gets the consumer confused. You can get a plugin designed for your site ,for example, which shows the rating of the product whenever a customer browses that product on any ecom site. This way, the work is simple for the buyer.
You can then think about adding coupons or crediting cash in the consumers’ wallet on your own site.So you get to retain the consumers. And once people come to know about your product , you can establish a niche in this segment
Abey John
“recommendation” vs “comparison” is a huge difference and yes that should give you an edge.
And please don’t link to success to “passion, hard work, and uniqueness”. That’s a recipe for a lot of emotional distress if things go south. FB did not succeed because of PHU. FB succeeded because of their ‘real names’ policy and because it had a sheltered growth in the petridish of universities and colleges.
The key here is human behavior. Zuckerberg stumbled on this facet almost by accident and for many years he was as clueless as to why his network beat the others. Real names adds an implicit layer of trust because you know the person who is posting plus when you do post you have to carefully consider what you post. You can’t just shoot off your mouth behind an anonymous name. The viral feedback loop that is created with real names is what helped FB. Of course, passion and hard work was around to capitalize on this. Uniqueness is overrated.
In your case the primary gap in the current crop of comparison engines is a deep and intuitive understanding of buying psychology and mapping that psychology to features and widgets that fit within the purchase continuum.
Take a look at this: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/19022/How-to-Leverage-the-5-Stages-of-the-Customer-Buying-Cycle-for-More-Sales.aspx
And also look at buyer personas. Your UI/UX should be aware of both the stage in the buying cycle as well as the type of persona at each stage in the cycle that you address, which would be the entire cycle except the final one of actual purchase.
Chetan Kambli
Thanks for your time Abey,
I was just trying to put my views, Am not much aware of the facts on facebook built but i was just referring to the sucess it got though there were other social networking players bigger than facebook.
I dont know what will be the end product or where my product ends but am trying to help visitors who doesnot have much knowledge about phones/products and looking to buy the same. I have seen many good websites similar to what am building but i feel they are cluttered with all the unnecessary information which we dont need, am trying to avoid that clutterness in my website may be i end up doing the same as others but the goal is to help people decide what to buy.
I m just trying to build something simple which any one can use, thanks for the links provided by you i have to learn more about the consumer behaviour than designing/developing the product, as i said i will keep learning and developing the site with the time. , hopefully i will get sucess
Chetan Kambli
Hello Ananta
Thanks for your input on creating a plugin which shows ratings whenever a user visits product on any eCom sites but right now i dont have that technical knowledge and i may find it difficult to promote the plugin to the visitors, In Phonekhoj too we are developing a feature where we will show all the top reviews from the websites below the product so a visitor doesnot have to go through all the different sites, he just read all reviews at one place
I know a plugin something similar to which you explained which shows lowest price of the product while browsing eCom websites plugin name is “MakkhiChoose”
Right now i dont have knowledge or expertise in developing/marketing the plugin but once site get some visitors and hopefully revenue i will definately think of developing a plugin or a APP as per your suggestion, Thanks again