IIT Bombay and Stanford alumni join hands to make pre-owned bike buying easier for you
If you wanted to buy a second hand bike or vehicle, how would you go about it? Many would reach out to friends or known associates through social media or traditional modes of communication –word of mouth. The pre-owned vehicle market is fast growing; for example, Olx claims to be one of the largest portals for used cars in the country. According to sources, this segment might even get bigger than the new vehicle market. Now entering this segment is a platform for second-hand bikes, CredR.
Born out of personal experience, CredR was started by IIT Mumbai and Stanford alumni Sumit Chhazed, Nikhil Jain, Nittin Mittal and Shiv Agarwal. “A year back, my colleague and I were trying to buy a second hand. Only when we took the plunge did we realise how difficult and hassling the process actually was. There is lack of trust in the product, as there are no benchmarks. The process of discovery of the good to purchase in itself was inconvenient,” says Sumit.
Thus, the team realised that this market needed someone to come up and build credibility, trust, transparency and convenience in the space, thus making it easy for the buyer to understand and pick the right product for their use.
How does CredR work?
According to Nikhil, buying a bike on CredR is a simple three step process. You get to choose from a wide range of bikes of different models and brands. All details are provided, like the colour and body, working condition, document verifications – whether these are good, satisfactory or bad - and performance metrics. On the basis of this, you can choose which bike you would like to test drive. The bike is then taken to you, the prospective buyer.
“After this, if you like the bike, you can pay a token amount. You can then complete the payment through payment gateways integrated on the website. And after that, there is a little documentation and then the bike is yours,” says Nikhil.
When the team started, they had three bikes per day. Currently, they are averaging 30 to 40 bikes per day. The average selling price of a bike is close to Rs.40000 – 45,000, according to Nikhil. The gross merchandise value is around two crores per month.
Speaking of the challenges faced, Nikhil says that initially it was very difficult to get into the secondhand bike market. This was because the team was very clear on transparency and wanted the prospective buyer to know everything about the bike, including its problems. “It was difficult to convince people that transparency was only going to help them, as it would give the buyer confidence,” adds Nikhil.
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Market space and traction
Operational for the past four months now, CredR works in three cities – Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune -and has sold over 1000 bikes. “We receive close to a 1000 requests every day and are clocking a 300 per cent month-on-month growth. With over 180 employees currently, we plan to expand to the 10 most ‘automobile-crazy’ cities in the coming months, and attain a pan-Indian presence.We are also aiming at strengthening our technological and operational bases. We are in advanced talks about institutional funding and are hoping to close the same within the next few weeks,” concludes Sumit. Companies like MahindraFirstChoice have even raised a second round of funding of $15 million.
The segment and space for used goods is fast picking up in India, especially pre-owned vehicles. Apart from biggies like Quikr and Olx, several other startups like Zigwheels, ReGlobe, Bikewale and Carwale are entering the space. When it comes to used cars, the space is said to be 1.3 times bigger than new cars and continuing to grow exponentially.
Video editor: Anjali Achal
Cameraman : Rukmangada Raja
Video Reporter: Dola Samanta