What is Priceza?
Over the years, the attitude of people towards online shopping has changed drastically. Especially in the countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand, there has been many changes in the last decade. Many people have only recently converted to the services that the world wide web provides. Though they were sceptical at first, people have learned to trust e-commerce so much that many have stopped going to stores. They do not even bother to go to a mall or a market to buy stuff. With the growth of e-commerce, Thailand also offers various opportunities to new and exciting startup businesses. Priceza is one such startup that has achieved success during this boom.
Priceza (1) is a search engine and comparison platform from Thailand which is exclusively for shopping. Three computer science engineers named Thanawat Malabuppa, Vachara Nicatatphand, Wirod Supadul founded this startup in January 2010. Thanawat Malabuppa, the CEO of Priceza is also the chairman of the Thai E-commerce Association. The policy of Priceza is to offer credible and authentic data about the products and thus draw in more customers. It is currently one of the leading price comparison platforms in the whole of Southeast Asia. Priceza has also expanded into countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.
The birth of Priceza
Even after e-commerce business started flourishing in SouthEast Asia, many did not find it credible. This is indicated by the fact that almost 50 percent of the shoppers opt for cash on delivery. They do not trust the sites enough to give their personal information or bank account details. The online shopping business in Thailand takes up just around 3 percent of the entire retail sector. However, statistics also show that the e-commerce business may be able to develop from 3 billion dollars in 2018 to 13 billion dollars by 2025.
Back in the 2000s, many companies struggled with getting customers for their online business. They were draining cash for additional marketing and sales advancements. Many companies had to give away discount offers coupons, free delivery and low commission expenses. The co-founder of Priceza, Thanawat Malabuppa, realised that the solution to this problem was not a greater number of merchants or items. What the people needed to start trusting online shopping was platforms that could give the best-quality, substantial shopping guides.
Finally in January 2010, he founded Priceza along with two other friends. It was during a time that the online shopping market in Thailand had reached its peak. They gathered a lot of reliable information about the sellers and focused on personalised suggestions. The clients soon started trusting them and the site received more visitors on a monthly basis. They worked with a vision to make the online commercial business in Southeast Asia as straightforward as possible through their platform. Providing valid data to the customers could also help a healthy competition, thus aiding both the buyers and sellers.
Growth over the years
Priceza established popularity in its business sectors by building up relations with online companies and retailers in Thailand. They were able to collect data and store records on a wide scope of items using these collaborations. Priceza entered into deals with enterprises like Lazada, Zalora, Central Group, Groupon, Rakuten etc. All these companies have their items in the database of Priceza. As of 2014, the company had 5,000 stores on Priceza Thailand and another 5,000 stores on Priceza Indonesia. These contributed to an aggregate sum of 1.6 million items in Thailand and 2,000,000 items in Indonesia.
Priceza was able to own 85 percent of business in the price comparison sector of Thailand. Every month saw more than 3.3 million guests, looking through 5 million products from 10,000 sellers. The Priceza website in Indonesia could achieve 1.3 visitors every month. In 2017, Priceza had initiated the new benefit called “Priceza Money” which is available at money.priceza.com. This new strategy presented a platform where people could compare the financial schemes like vehicle insurance, personal loan and credit cards.
Success of the company
Since there was a surge in the number of online shopping sites after 2010, people were becoming more confused. This situation attracted more users as they wanted a clear picture of what they were facing. Even though many shopping sites had pages on social media, these were not useful for luring in customers. Most of the time, the clients would simply take a look at such pages with no goal of purchasing on the web. They might be checking the cost of a product while already in a physical store.
In some rare cases, the online website was an off-shoot of a physical store that may procure a visit. For the initial three months in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, Priceza had given many offers to the online dealers. Priceza gave away free postings thus attracting more sellers. When the watchful shippers saw the uptick in their guest traffic, they were happy to sign on for a long term alliance.
Over the years, the company has gathered more authentic information to help more customers to make the right choice. As of now, Priceza has posted details of more than 100 million items through their website. In the coming years, Priceza hopes to grow its foundation on other financial services. They also hope to give more attention to client’s welfare and improve their assistance and administration.
Competition for Priceza
Some of the similar platforms like Priceza are PricePrice owned by Kakaku of Japan, Etao by Alivaba group, PriceArea, PricePanda etc. Priceza works practically like Kakaku or the PriceGrabber in the US. It is similar to sites that help you choose between flight and hotel deals. You just need to enter the name of any product that you are looking for, such as clothes, television, accessories etc. The search engine will get you all the online retailers who are selling that item along with its price. Its user friendly layout allows you to easily figure out what you want in a split second.
You can also view which item is the least expensive and then navigate to the retailer’s site. A difference between Priceza and hotel-booking sites is that it does not play broker in the real exchange. Priceza allows the direct transaction between the buyer and the seller without becoming a mediator. The online sellers pay a price to Priceza to make them display their products. Priceza receives a commission from all small, medium and large enterprises for the consumer traffic that they receive.
Author: Nidhia Sebastian
Source : https://timesnext.com/the-story-of-priceza-thailands-favourite-price-comparison-platform/
Date : 2020-08-23T15:30:49.000Z