Now use Whatsapp to search for products on MySmartPrice

MySmartPrice which raised USD 1 Million in funding from Helion Venture Partners and Accel Partners earlier this year, has launched a new service for users to compare prices and discover the best price using WhatsApp. The user just needs to send a message to 9332222222 with their query to get an instant reply. It is not uncommon to spend a week or two researching the product before making a big purchase. And as the options increase, the time spent on researching also increases significantly. This might lead to analysis paralysis and ultimately to not buying the product at all. MySmartPrice is an online price comparison and shopping platform which enables people to make intelligent buying decisions. Looking at the boom of ecommerce in India, MySmartPrice was launched in December 2010 by Sitakanta Ray (Ex Oracle, IIM Bangalore, Ex ICICI) and Sulakshan Kumar (Ex Oracle, Ex Infosys) aiming to bring the best price to customers. The platform boasts of a traction of 10 million unique users per month, listing more than 200 product categories from over 50 online stores in India. Once the above number (9332222222) is saved in your phone, you just need to write the name of the product and send it as a message on Whatsapp. The results become more specific as the queries are narrowed down. We tried to search for a camera using the canon as a filter and this is what we came up with.

After we modified our search term to be more specific, the results improved significantly.

Sulakshan Kumar, Co Founder, MySmartPrice said,Today, more than 10 million users across India use MySmartPrice on a monthly basis to make their shopping decisions quick and easier. The growing number of users is not merely a reflection of our popularity but an indication of our constant endeavor to introduce best-in-class services to our patrons. Considering the growing popularity of WhatsApp in India and world-over, I am certain that this new feature will become a phenomenal success and facilitate people in making not only the right choice but a ‘smart’ choice.

One of the advantages of this feature is that a user need not move to a browser and type in a long URL, followed by the product name in the search box anymore. This makes a big difference to the behavior part. Majority of youth prefer social media, Whatsapp and instant messaging tool for communication. Using Whatsapp to search for a product has made it as easy as communicating with a friend. With over 50 million active users in India, Whatsapp provides a good platform for the new feature by MySmartPrice. And using Whatsapp for MySmartPrice's product might turn out to be a great move and lead to other players going the same way if this catches on.

Update: MySmartPrice has pulled down this service following objections from WhatsApp.  http://twitter.com/sulkumar/status/516572141328687105