Adgully Exclusive | Reaching out to masses through mass media has been our key marketing strategy: Olx's Amarjit Singh Batra

Olx, a free online classifieds site, provides a platform to buy, sell, exchange and trade goods and services (second hand included) by simply posting an ad on the website. Consumers use this classifieds platform to connect directly with potential buyers and sellers, like selling (or buying) their cars and motorcycles; selling of anything from the house ' from furniture to electronics items to paintings. Placing ads for services like looking for a tutor, painting class, baby sitter or ads looking for renting a flat, paying guest accommodation. It has all key classifieds categories like Jobs, Real Estate, Cars, For Sale, Services, Education and Community and especially a "MATRIMONIAL' category that is unique to India.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Amarjit Singh Batra, Country manager, Olx.in, shared some insights about the site, their workings and much more.

Sharing some key highlights of Olx, Batra said, "Olx the online classified site, started in 2006. It is spread over 96 countries and almost all over India. It is basically used by consumers to connect directly with the buyers and sellers in terms of buying and selling of cars, flats etc. It also deals in selling of anything from the house, jobs, real estate, cars, for sale, services, education and much like."

Speaking about the edge they bring in with Olx, he said, "Since we are a well established company we understand this business really well. Our platform is not used in India but I 95 other countries which shows that we understand the mind sets of the consumers as well. We have a unique factor in the products we introduce; like we were the first one to introduce mobile classifieds in the country. So after having such appreciable features, I guess we bring in a good edge."

Besides having strong presence on web; olx also has a mobile site https://m.olx.in that is accessible to those who can access internet through their mobile. It now has an application for iphone and android phones. It has also launched a Hindi site https://www.olx.in/hi for those who are not comfortable with English language. The Hindi site is accessible both on the web and the mobile.

In an era where one has 'n' number of competitors, it is really difficult though equally important to stand different and unique. He says, "We are present in all key cities in India including the Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities. The best part we think is that, we are localized in different languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malyalam and Marathi and also we allow users to connect locally and consume content in their native language. Also we have an option of embedding video of a product. Since we are in a business of free classifieds we do not charge people for posting their ads, which again is a unique factor."

Speaking about the advertising and media agencies on board, Batra said, "We have Saatchi and Saatchi as a creative agency and Zenithopti media as a media agency. Within the public relation space, we have Value 360 Communications doing the PR bit for us."

"Reaching out to masses through mass media is the key and first marketing strategy of the company", said Batra, "And to reach that way we targeted the television market and the second was to build a position wherein you stand different and unique. The third is that we always wanted to engage deeply with common people and we created a platform where anybody can trade," added Batra.

As a growth plan, the company wants to be the first in the league and also wants to be a site which every Indian loves and can easily operate.

Amarjit Singh Batra, currently serves as Country manager, Olx India and leads the category development efforts, executes marketing programs to create brand awareness and improve user engagement, build strategic partnerships and formulate strategies for driving growth. Olx entered the Indian market with a view to provide a marketplace for second hand goods. Olx is a next generation classifieds where consumer can design their own ads using rich features like videos, pictures; display their own ads on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace etc. Globally, OLX experiences over 70 million unique visitors per month and 500 million page views per month, and almost 2 million new ads are posted on OLX every month. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]

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