'nearbuy' records 500% growth within 3 months of launch

After receiving its first round of funding from leading venture capitalist firm – Sequoia India, Groupon India announced its decision in August 2015 to re-brand themselves as ‘nearbuy’ – an independent startup. In the three months since launch, the company’s topline has seen a 500% growth. Consolidating its leadership position, nearbuy is now focusing on many firsts in the industry including creating a real time market place for local commerce in the country. 

The company is also on a hiring spree and has doubled its employee strength in the last three months. The recent appointment of Akshay Rajwade as Senior Vice-President - Product is a step towards establishing technology leadership in the local commerce space. Akshay will lead product vision for nearbuy driven by his experience at Flipkart, where he spent 2.5 years as Director – Mobile Product. Before Flipkart, Akshay spent 5 years at Google’s Mountain View Campus and has a Master’s Degree from Stanford. 

The technology team comprising engineers, design and product management is now 100+. This is in addition to the 200+ business development team across 35 cities serving 18 categories makes nearbuy the largest local commerce player in the country.

On the appointment of Akshay and nearbuy’s overall growth, Ankur Warikoo, CEO & Co-founder, nearbuy, said, “It has been three months since Groupon India was rebranded as nearbuy and so far we have been able to achieve a lot. The web and mobile platforms have seen more than a 1200% growth in traffic. Conversion has been in the steady double digits & 60% of all registered users have already transacted on the platform buying over a million vouchers in the last three months. Mobile contribution has zoomed to more than 40% of all transactions.  It’s very interesting to see how more and more people are using nearbuy to buy meals, spa sessions, party offers and concert tickets right when they are at the venue. Thus, purchase and consumption is now almost simultaneous. Akshay’s addition to the team brings us closer in creating a seamless experience for merchants and customers, thus making our product vision a reality.”

On his appointment, Akshay Rajwade, Senior Vice-President - Product, nearbuy said, “I am extremely excited to be part of nearbuy’s new journey.  The unique confluence of local commerce and the way this product easily gels into the social fabric of the country is amazing. My aim will be to make sure that it becomes a daily habit for customers to use nearbuy each time they step out. While price and deals has always been Groupon’s strength, with nearbuy we will focus on discovery and relevance.”

nearbuy’s recent ‘December to Remember’ campaign peaked on 31^st December with daily sales touching INR 2.8 Crores. This made nearbuy the single largest online source for Christmas and New Year event ticket sales. More than 1.4 lakh individuals used nearbuy on December 31^st across 9,000 unique merchants across 23 cities in the country.