The world of internet classifieds is seeing a paradigm shift in the way the industry is moving forward. The initial phase saw growth of sites such as Olx.com or Naukri.com where people could upload their products/services and those who wanted to buy these products/services could do so by looking at the listings on these sites. However, everything changes for the better and so is the online classifieds industry.
“With the initial online classifieds portals, the onus of verifying the products was always with the customer buying the product. This made the process longer and did not really create true value for the customer. We therefore decided to start a company that is based on what we call the classifieds 2.0 model to deliver true value, ” says Shubh Bansal,Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Truebil.
[box type=”shadow” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=”600″]Truebil is a managed marketplace for buying and selling used cars. Truebil lists all cars which are verified by the Truebil engineers making sure that buyers are quickly able to buy the car without too much hassle.[/box]
So what exactly is the Classifieds 2.0 concept ? According to Shubh, verifying the condition of the car is the most critical process while buying a used car. Truebil engineers do this work for the buyers and list all information about the car and its condition on the site thus making it very easy for buyers to make a purchase decision. The concept of Classifieds 2.0 therefore is to have verified, curated listings on the site with all the information required by the buyer in making a purchase decision. Truebil therefore acts not only as the listing portal but kind of an authenticator of used cars.
In times when sites such as Cardekho and Carwale are listing cars on a huge scale, how does Truebil expect to stand out and make a mark in the industry ? “All the other car listing sites that exist in the market today work with car dealers to list cars online and that is how they make money. There is no question of verifying the condition of the car. This is where we stand out where we deliver value to customers by proving verified information about the car and reducing the time for car purchase decision,” says Shubh. “Besides this, the company also handholds buyers during the entire buying process right from helping out with paper transfers, insurance and loans. ” he adds.
Incepted in March 2015, Truebil is an outcome of the integration of seven thinking minds; Suraj Kalwani (CEO, IIT KGP, ExHousing),Ravi Chirania (Operations, IIT KGP, Ex– Housing),Shubh Bansal (Marketing, IIIT Jabalpur, Ex-‐Housing),Rakesh Raman (Product, IITB, Ex-‐Housing),Ritesh Pandey (Technology, IIIT Jabalpur, Ex-‐ Fab.com),Shanu Vivek (Marketing, IITB, Ex-‐Housing) and Himanshu Singhal Operations, IIT KGP, Ex -‐Rio Tinto). Together, the founders hold extensive start -up work experience having worked with companies like Housing.com, Fab.com, Fusion Charts etc. The truebil team today is a 50+ strong team.
On the 1st of June 2015, within only 3 months of inception, the company received USD 500,000 in its first round of funding from Kae Capital and angel investor Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of People Group. When asked about how Truebil could manage to get funded in such a short time Shubh says “Investors where very excited and supportive of our idea. There has been no disruption in the online car market in the past decade and Truebil’s business model is sure to create one. Besides this, our strong team with a lot of experience in the startup industry was a huge asset which made the investors take the call.”
Truebil is planning to use the funding for 2 main purposes – creating a robust technology platform and for expanding into more cities. The company plans on creating a technology platform for buyers and sellers that is easy to use and will help the company scale massively in the times to come. The company is also planning on expanding to atleast 2 more cities by the end of the year. (Currently Truebil is operating only out of Mumbai.)
Truebil today has more than 1000 cars listed on the site, has more than 160 cars sold through the site and sees a GMV of more than INR 3 crore. The company sells 2 to 3 cars per day. Typically the industry sees a session duration of 2 to 3 minutes on the site. Truebil on the other hand is seeing an average session duration of more than 8 minutes on the site which they believe is a very good sign and assures that users are getting a lot of valuable information about what they are looking for.
