Internet adoption has seen the evolution of some usual suspects across most geographies and one of the key category is that of Digital Marketplaces. A portal which successfully brings together the supply and demand side forces together. In India we have seen the growth of such marketplaces for jobs (Naukri, Monster etc) , marriages (Bharatmatrimony), finance (Deal4loans, BimaDeals etc),deals (SnapDeal) and so on.
Its interesting to see how most of these have evolved over the years and in this post I attempt to see where they might be headed in the future.
Phase 1: Information collation + Listings
The early phase for most marketplaces begins with bringing a sufficient number of suppliers and promoting the portal to get consumers (demand side forces). And the key attribute in this phase is that the portal has the most comprehensive listing in that category. Data which is fresh and probably not available anywhere else. So Naukri in its first avatar was just a listing of openings available- a digital version of what people used to browse in magazines and newspapers.
Phase 2: Customization, filtering, meaningful handshakes
In the next phase a marketplace sees the need for tools that would help consumers connect directly to people who are most relevant. This might be done by better profiling, filters, trend based suggestions etc. Idea is that the consumer (& maybe the supplier also) should not waste too much time going through all profiles to get to the one(s) that are most relevant. Job portals have a meaningful profiling section to filter profiles. Marriage portals have gone to the level of checking Manglik/Preferred cuisines of prospective grooms/brides. I was also told about one where if you saw a photo, you could see other profiles with “similar” photos. While the marriage filters might sound too extreme 🙂 but there is a general perception that these tools bring clear value to the users.
When we launched Deal4Loans, we decided to focus in at this level directly. We invested in a warm body process to call our customers and understand what they specifically wanted. We then applied our understanding of the space to match the requirements with loan providers and did a handshake between the loan seeker and the providers.
What next: Managing the need
While most digital marketplaces have grown because they become the go-to-places for getting handshakes. Most of them have become so big, that its still an overwhelming experience for the consumer. Maybe thats why some of the marriage portals have launch a premiere service , where you get a relationship manager to do all the ground work.
The bigger problem is that in most cases, no one is tracking whether the customer’s need got fulfilled or not. Take the example of jobs. We are looking to expand our team in the new start-up. We will come up with ads on Naurki and Monster etc, but no one will help us see this requirement get closed. We will get CVs, we would call and shortlist them etc. But did we find our next team member? Do we have some special requirements?
Look at our loans business. We do the handshakes and we do it better than any one else in the industry. But we are not yet checking if the consumer’s requirement got serviced (incase it was serviceable). I personally feel, the industry will gradually demand this out of most evolved digital marketplaces, and the ones who invest early on will see increased user traction.