MANAGING BUSINESS MARKETS

Term III

IndiaMART
Case Submission
1. What is the basis of pricing at IndiaMART?
India-Mart had adopted a revenue model which was primarily based on the Subscription fee. The focus was to acquire new
paid customers and encourage existing customer for renewal of the subscription.

Different categories of services were available for suppliers based on their quantity, quality, and commitment. Various perks
and add-ons were available for each service.

1. Leading supplier – Monthly fee of Rs. 14,999

2. Star supplier - Monthly fee of Rs. 7,999

3. Maximiser - Monthly fee of Rs. 3,999

Various premium services like “Buy-Leads” were offered as an Add-ons. Pricing of the service was based on Pay per seen
Lead.

2. Why do customers keep coming back to IndiaMART? How does IndiaMART protect
itself from being a discovery platform?
IndiaMART didn't have any advertising program, in spite that customers flocked to its platform because of the below-
mentioned reasons.

 Since the google page algorithm ensured that the 'search results were ranked consistently higher made the platform
lucrative for the suppliers.

 The pricing was kept low to attract customers for a paid registration; at this price, suppliers had a plethora of
opportunities that this platform provided.

 With the growing customer base, IndiaMART introduced Trade Offers – a business classifieds service to its
offerings.

 In anticipation of buyer's choice, the team transforming the online company directory into a giant product catalog.
Every customer appreciates and looks for innovation which the company was providing.

 IndiaMart didn't stop 'free listing and free inquiry forwarding,' which made it grow organically.

IndiaMART provided 360-degree solutions to the SMEs, including listing, storefront, and various others, and made several
efforts to protect itself from being a discovery platform like

 They introduced a product called 'Buy-Lead(BL)' that offered interested suppliers to respond with quotes and offers,
a simple, effective and unique 'pay per seen lead' concept.

 They launched TrustSEAL in partnership with CRISIL – Country's premier credit rating agency, which was designed
using an impressive scorecard based on the availability of documents like PAN card, Import-Export code, partnership
deed, etc.
  IndiaMART started a PNS (Preferred Number Service) for buyers to connect with buyers like google voice used in
the US.

3. Why does IndiaMART focus on ensuring that sellers are also buyers?
 IndiaMart's focus on higher engagement on the platform and to achieve that the firm needed sellers also become buyers
of the raw material to process the order.

 This cycle will ensure that IndiaMart has a bigger pie of the transactions.

 Moreover, this will give a fair idea of Customer responsiveness, Fairness of trade, and maintaining the credibility of
trade. In addition, the advent of modern computing has made implementing AI and machine learning very easy.

 As time progress, the company will collect more and more data points, and its predictive search engine will only get
better with a better ranking of the suppliers. This, in turn, will help the whole B2B eco-system.

 Secondly, to sustain its rapid growth, IndiaMart has implemented a new advertising policy. To increase the platform's
attractiveness for the seller, it will need a higher number of buyers to be engaged with the platform and vice-versa.

4. What are the goals of IndiaMART? Do you think these goals are reasonable? How could
they achieve these business goals?
We can broadly categorize IndiaMART goals into 2 categories: Macro & Micro Goals.

Macro Goals:
1. Encouraging Suppliers to be Buyers

2. Managing Employee Attrition

3. Reducing Supplier Churn

Micro Goals:
In the year 2014 - 15 IndiaMART had set following goals:

1. Every month, generate 10 million buying enquires

2. Expand customer base with over 100,000 paid customers

3. Generate an ARPU (average revenue per user) of USD 1000

4. Secure 33% EBITDA margins

In 2013, IndiaMART was supporting almost close to 40K suppliers and its average revenue per user was $503 with EBITDA
margins around 35%. Their targets seemed more achievable with the beginning of Tolexo – online ecommerce platform for
business supplies and consumables and mobile opportunity.
To achieve these business goals, they could do following things:

1. Prioritizing suppliers to improve the relevancy of the search of suppliers in mobile searches.

2. Expanding the overall supplier base, via acquiring an extensive listing of suppliers. This can be carried out via
acquisition of recent customers through word-of-mouth means.

3. Encouraging providers to be buyers, as IndiaMART believed that each supplier is likewise a buyer too

4. Reducing supplier churn rate by providing enough business leads

5. Managing employee attrition by adapting NPS to measure and monitor employee satisfaction and engagement.

them on the vines or leave them on the vines

1.2 OBJECTIVE

1.3 PROBLEM STATEME or to leave them on the vines

in an uncertain weat