Forkmycity.com – Marketplace of daily desires of outbound travelers. Feedback please!

By Nakul Bhatia on September 3, 2014 8 Comments / 3005 views

Hi Rodinhooders,

Would appreciate your feedback on the concept and the product at forkmycity.com

After having spent 12 years in the travel industry, I finally opted to venture in to the online e-commerce space. We all know the fact that over 75% of e-commerce transactions are in the travel segment. In the industry itself the recent online booking diversification is due to the change of travelers thought process of booking flights, hotels & other stuff separately as per his convenience.

Now to avoid being in the regular highly competitive area of flights and hotels and to avoid being one of the many recent itinerary creating travel start ups, I initiated a market place of small, yet extremely crucial daily desires of travelers in their destination.

What’s Fork My City – Fork My City is a travel market place connecting products and services that form the daily needs, activities and desires of millions of travelers worldwide. Book restaurants, spa, night life and shopping in advance included in your next vacation.

USP – We are solving the pain point of Indian travelers’ food issues. They can search and book their favorite Indian meals once, twice or 3 times a day through our network of Indian restaurants that we are looking to form worldwide. They can look out for the closest restaurant to their hotel or where ever they are in the city through the map. Besides they can also book other desires such as Spa, Night Life & attractive offers on shopping.

Usage – Simply enter your destination (currently Bangkok & Pattaya), enter your dates, choose a pre set meal or a flat discount, pay online and carry the voucher. The voucher will be valid across your travel dates which you may use as per your convenience during those dates.

Again, would appreciate the fellows here for a rough and wise feedback on it all.

Thanks in advance. We are also looking out for a Tech Co Founder to be a part of it. Get in touch in case you’re up for it or if you have any idea’s to share. Mail me nakul@forkmycity.com or give me a buzz at +91 9899317199.

Show some love please.

Like us on Facebook and visit our blog.forkmycity.com

Comments

Nakul Bhatia

8 Comments

Manish Golchha September 3, 2014, 1:30 pm

Hi Nakul

This is a very good idea. Location based deals during vacations. Just you need to keep in mind about the target audience. I feel not to focus only for Indian’s. Better to focus on unique places to eat, bar etc. Normally whenever anyone travel to new countries he/she prefer to try unique or famous things over there and targetting those places will be helpful. Also, I feel these products are mostly going to consumed at last moment as no one want to buy these facilities in advance, so you need to give that flexibility to the customer by creating an APP. I know it will take time to generate user reviews but till then you can provide expert reviews on the places you are listing. Atleast give some confidence to the user to book the services.

Do add few useful content for users going to Bangkok & Pattaya will compel them to visit your site again and again.

Personal & honest opinion: I didn’t like the name. It’s not catchy and difficult to remember.

All the best & I suggest, as you are in beta stage – do provide some out of the world offers which make your initial users to talk about your product with friends / family / in forum etc. Out of the offers doesn’t mean go in loss, what I mean to say try to get some partner on board who can provide amazing deals or benefits which normally not available anywhere.

Happy Holidays….!
Nakul Bhatia September 3, 2014, 1:53 pm

Hey Manish,

Thanks for taking time to review.

1. Yes, targeting the world audience is in the offing. As a start to validate the user experience we are keeping the USP as solving Indian travelers food issues. Unique places is a very good suggestion to be added as a feature to the entire concept.

2. You are right about the App. It will be developed soon.

3. Yes, we are looking to integrate trip advisor reviews.

4. Content – do you think it should be in the site itself or can we do it through our blog and social media?

5. Well, honestly you’re the 1st one to dislike the name out of maybe 100 people as far as I remember. That makes you unique. We know how tough it is to get non twisted .com domains these days unless we spend may be half a million bucks.

6. What we were thinking as an alternative was to provide Free deals in order to gain initial traction. What do you think?

Thanks again mate.
Manish Golchha September 3, 2014, 2:03 pm

1. Idea Validation with Indian USP – I feel you need to think as we Indians not reached to that freedom level to book these kind of deals stuff online. VERY STRONG POINT you need to think or do market research.

4. Content must be on the site – check this out – reason i visit website for content and booked tours as well. http://www.phuket.com

5. Initially no one one to discourage you for names But if your vision is to make it big, I feel name make a lot of difference. I had validated this in the market.

6. The word FREE Deal now a days don’t make consumers crazy. Its a very common pratice with almost every e-commerce companies. It’s about the offerings which will make a difference. So you need to workout on that part.
Nakul Bhatia September 3, 2014, 2:09 pm

1. My bad. Mixed some terms here. I meant make the user experience top notch by starting out with 1 region as the target before moving on. USP – being in the travel industry for 12 years, I have had clients as well as agents asking for Indian lunch/dinner arrangements or at least some coupons. Plus we are going ahead by offering these services in B2C as well as through B2B agents network in India, maybe, mixed with the package that they sell.

4. Yes, gotta work on content on site.

5. Would review that. Let me do a research on .com again.

6. I think you’re correct. There has to be a value offering.

Thanks mate.
Manish Golchha September 3, 2014, 2:13 pm

Nakul, I do run my own travel company & sent lot of people to Thailand. My suppliers do provide me food coupons at discounted cost if my customer demand the same. Yes, they don’t provide other products available on ur site.

All the best…!
Nakul Bhatia September 3, 2014, 2:23 pm

Thanks again for your time, feedback & wishes Manish.
asha chaudhry November 5, 2014, 6:22 am

hey nakul,

did u find a tech co-founder yet? if not, feel free to post in our JOBS section!
Nakul Bhatia November 5, 2014, 7:57 am

Hi Asha,

Not yet, however that’s a good suggestion. I go through the jobs section here.

Cheers