Gozoop Launches DecideBuddy, An Online Consumer Product Review Site
“Entrepreneurship was always there in my mind. Blogging, internet marketing, online success stories, and possibility of catering to global audience while sitting at home – all acted as triggers. I found the American Internet startup scene really fascinating and wanted to explore this field since my college days,” says Dushyant Bhatia, Co-Founder, Decidebuddy.
Talking about his entrepreneurial journey, Dushyant says that, “After running GOZOOP for over 4 years with my friends (and partners) Rohan and Ahmed and building a team of over 50 during this period, we knew web business was the next step. After brainstorming for a couple of weeks and discussing the pros and cons of the internet startup eco system in India, this concept made a lot of sense. Given the fact that we intend to run this portal and scale across countries without external funding, a concept like this seemed to be perfect for us.”
Product review sites are not new; hence Dushyant shares his points of view on the same, “We also see a good opportunity in the online reviews space as a derivative of our experience of managing the online presence of over 100 clients across continents. There are a number of online review portals but overall there still exists a huge scope for maturity in this space. And the growing Indian internet demography demands it. There is a need for credibility as far as online review portals in India go. Our vision for Decidebuddy is to not only help consumer make an informed buying decision through genuine reviews but also to help brands connect and receive constructive feedback from end users.”
Decidebuddy is a Gozoop product and hence they have access to the manpower to execute their vision. These individuals have worked on international projects in India, Middle East, and Singapore. Their SEO strategy, social media strategy, PPC strategy; everything is conceptualized and executed by Gozoop.
The Indian market has always remained elusive with respect to reading reviews on the net and buying just on the basis of what someone unknown has written. Yet, Dushyant reaffirms that “India is definitely a difficult market when it comes to content creation. We’ve noticed that a majority of Indians read reviews and make their buying decisions based on the reviews but when it comes to writing reviews, not many come forward. Surprisingly, a good chunk of traffic comes from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The large percentage of rural households in India could be one of the reasons for this figure.”
They are planning a simple business model; Dushyant adds that, “Affiliate model seems very promising and we’re in a process of chartering into this territory. Right now, Decidebuddy crawls some online stores. We are also offered XML feeds of products and prices from a few of these stores. Prices are updated every 12 hours. At present, we do not offer premium / priority listings in our search results. Diversified revenue stream will follow but we need to get our basics right first.”
Dushyant feels that loyalty is major issue among Indian customers, “We see a significant amount of traffic coming via search engines but what eventually we’re aiming to achieve is conversion of these search engine visitors into loyalists. That is one of our priorities. In addition to monetization plans, a lot of focus has to be given to things like user interface / experience, value offerings etc.”
They have plans on to introduce a mobile website, more product categories, more affiliate partnerships, product discovery features, stronger search algorithm, and analytics for brands.
“At this point in time, we’re looking to grow organically. We’re not looking at external funding and would like to bootstrap. Currently we’re serving Indian consumers but soon plan to launch Decidebuddy in UAE, wherein Gozoop already has a physical presence,” adds Dushyant on a concluding note.
Did the latest gadget you bought trouble you? Write a review on Decidebuddy and assist others with their purchase.