Adgully Exclusive | Customer centric and innovative design- Mydala's Anisha Singh

mydala.com, India's social commerce portal that offers a daily deal on the best stuff to do, eat, see, and buy in major cities across India, was launched in November 2009. mydala offers unbeatable deals to consumers with discounts ranging from 40 to 95% with no hidden conditions. Recently Info Edge, one of the largest internet companies in India, has committed to invest Rs.90 million in Kinobeo Software Pvt Ltd, which runs mydala.com. This is the sixth investment as part of the Info Edge strategy to invest in internet start-ups. Mydala.com plans to use this investment on customer acquisition, expanding operations and widening its geographical reach.

So Adgully caught up with Anisha Singh, Founder and CEO, mydala.com to know more about the portal's plans for 2011.

Talking about consumer acceptance of the group buying format, Singh says, "Since we pioneered the concept in India, it was a learning process for users but once the users understood that it meant saving while going out - the response has been fantastic. To date mydala has saved its users over Rs.3.5 crores. We've seen incredible enthusiasm among customers and merchants. We have been fortunate to have built out a loyal mydala user base that have been strong influencers for mydala and have helped us grow virally rather than having to aquire customers with aggressive marketing. Our primary focus is to gain the trust of our users and give them the comfort that if the deal is on mydala, it is an unbeatable one and they should buy it."

With more monetary input Singh says that the portal will harp on improving transactional experience for the customers. "Our users always expect a lot from mydala ' and we like that! It pushes us to work harder to constant innovate and provide a good customer experience. There is a lot more coming this year," she adds.

Singh says that innovation has always been mydala's strength. "Our goal not just for 2011 but for the long term future is to innovate and keep providing the best user as well as merchant experience," she adds.

So which are some of the product categories and brands that have opened up to the portals concept to form a collaborative force?

Singh says, "The verticals that we primarily target are: health and beauty, restaurants, shopping, recreation (including travel), events and other services which include things like car wash services, home repair etc. To cater to mydala's growing subscriber base from across India we also have a section on the site focused on providing pan India deals. As far as brands are concerned we have done deals for new brands as several leading well established brands, the goal has always been to provide users with deals on things /places that they would want on a regular basis."

Moreover talking about measures that the portal has taken to build value experience for customers online, Singh says, "Our goal has always been to provide customers with the best experience possible. It can be seen with the quality of our deals which has always been superior. We have taken feedback, asked our users and built features into mydala that mydala's users would want to see. As we have done with pioneering the concept in India, we will constantly innovate and lead the market in building the best experience for our users."

While signing off Singh points out, "Like I mentioned earlier we have been fortunate to have a loyal mydala user base that have enabled mydala to grow virally rather than through aggressive marketing. We have a strong loyalty rewards program to reward our user base for being mydala champions. We have several innovations in the pipeline focused at building the best experience for our users as well as our merchant partner base." | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]