Zopper adds Q&A-based product search, price alerts in revamped app

Delhi-based Solvy Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, the company behind products review portal Zopper.com (earlier Reviews42.com), has added a couple of new features to its mobile app, including 'shop the Zopper way' and 'price drop every hour'. The site currently provides product review and comparison besides options to buy from both online and offline sellers.

Under shop the Zopper way feature, the company has mimicked an offline sales person's behaviour. The moment a user clicks on the app, he/she will be asked a set of questions concerning the product he/she plans to buy.

For example, if a user wants to buy an air conditioner, he/she will be asked the size of the room, ceiling height, if the room is heavily shaded during the day and the number of people who will be staying in the room and so on. Thereafter, the app will segregate all the brands and models best suiting the requirements.

Under the 'price-drop-every-hour' feature, the app will keep updating its users with the lowest price on different products across various e-commerce sites every hour. This is akin to price alert feature in practice by few other product discovery and comparison engines and OTAs.

"It is all technology and algorithm driven," Neeraj Jain, co-founder of Zopper told Techcircle.in. "Our target is to ensure that the consumer engagement is much deeper."

As of now, the app informs the users with the closest retail stores in their area where they are located. A user can also call the retailer using the app itself. The firm claims that the app contains information on over 10 million products and 400 product categories, including mobile, tablets, laptops, baby products, kitchen and home appliances. The app is currently available on Android platform and will soon be extended to iOS.

Fundraising and expansion plans

Zopper has just closed $5 million in its Series B round of funding from Tiger Global Management and Nirvana Venture Advisors. The funds will be utilised to expand the team, improve its infrastructure, and also for brand building and marketing.

Zopper would also start operations on sales and merchant listings across eight cities in India. The company representatives will go out to meet retailers on the ground across eight cities that include Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Mangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Secunderabad. "It is a multipronged growth that we look forward to have," Surjendu Kulia, co-founder of Zopper said.

The website claims to have close to half a million monthly users as of now and targets to grow 10 times in 10 months.

The firm has two revenue streams as of now. It gets bulk of the money through subscription fee charged to offline retailers who are made visible on the platform. The balance comes from affiliates marketing.

"We make some revenue on the affiliates but a major chunk of our revenue comes from the platforms that we sell to the small and medium enterprises. Our focus is 90 per cent on this (offline retailers)," Kulia said.