This is an Exclusive WATBlog interview with Mr Anuj Kanish Co-Founder & CEO of TolMol.com where Mr Anuj shares his thoughts with us about his company TolMol India’s No. 1 Comparison Shopping Site.
What is the Rational behind Tolmol? What are the synergies you see with your other internet spaces?
Avake launched online comparison shopping site for India – TolMol.com with a mission to help people make informed decisions related to shopping, travel, career and more. On TolMol site, the users can compare and find best deals on products and services from multiple sources. Additionally, TolMol Network allows them to read or write reviews and network with other users. The service is free for the users; the businesses pay us for lead generation, sponsorship/advertising space and other value added services that help them market their offerings to TolMol users.
Could you please share your revenue model with us?
TolMol provides sellers and service providers a platform where they can present their offerings to the targeted shoppers. They pay us when they receive a qualified lead from TolMol. We offer a performance-based pricing model that includes pay-per-click, pay-per-transaction, etc. To advertisers, we provide an opportunity to run their marketing campaigns and to build or strengthen brand.
Who do you consider as competition and what distinguishes you from them?
A growing number of companies provide India focused websites. We compete or will compete with these websites for visitors, online advertising and e-commerce based revenues. TolMol has taken an early-on lead in the comparison shopping space and is uniquely positioned in the rapidly growing India
online market. At present, there are a few sites including compareindia.com (acquired by network18) that directly compete with our site.
We differentiate from them by positioning TolMol as local comparison shopping service that presents offerings from both local and online sellers. We have developed a proprietary process to integrate offline retailers to our site. Our patent-pending ‘adaptive web parser’ technology brings deep content to the site. Wealso differentiate by offering Travel and Career verticals on the site. Our unique feature offerings such as airfare vs. trainfare comparison, shopper’s network, and our continuous focus on innovation strongly position us to remain competitive. Our team’s US market experience while developing products and technologies aimed at small businesses for companies such as Google also gives us an edge.
What is your staff strength? What is your target for the next 6 months?
We have a team of 32 people in Noida. The team consists of engineers, technologists, marketing and business development professionals. In next 6 months, we plan to expand our sales and marketing team and set-up regional sales offices in 4 regions. We also plan to seek funding for the Company to fuel the growth.
Are you currently engaging in any marketing activities to promote Tolmol?
At present, we are promoting TolMol by using Blogs and employing some local marketing initiatives. We plan to run major marketing campaigns in near future. Most of the new users on TolMol are coming from word of mouth (WOM).
Are there any particular companies you wish to tie up with to provide business network solution?
We have approached many major portals (like MSN India, etc.) and have offered to power their shopping services. Many media portals have shown interest in collaborating with us. We are also in discussions
with various regional players to distribute shopping services to them on revenue sharing model.
We are very excited to be a leader in the India’s online comparison shopping space and are strongly positioned to reap huge benefits as the market size grows.
