Introduction
Business Plan of OLX involves business model, revenue model, business information and relevant information.
OLX was founded in 2006. The OLX marketplace is a platform for buying and selling services and goods such as electronics, fashion items, furniture, household goods, cars, and bikes. As of 2021, OLX Group operated around 20 brands in around 30 countries. OLX offers various distinct services based on its customer’s preferences. It allows them to buy or sell anything.
OLX had a standing of $30 million before being purchased by Naspers. OLX has achieved major success in India where it stands as the largest marketplace. The success of OLX forced Google to shut down Google Trader, its classifieds website.
OLX is the most exclusive online platform that offers the facility to its customers to sell anything at a reasonable price digitally. When it comes to second-hand purchasing, people become quite conscious and do not want to waste their precious money on non-worthy items.
Business Model
OLX works like just another classifieds portal – it has a parallel system for customers running side by side. People who wish to sell any goods can upload their advertisements just like one is expected to do in a classifieds portal. People who wish to buy goods may browse through the listing. The Business Model of OLX is actually scale-dependent.
Sellers need to upload pictures of their goods, along with a title and description of the same and the expected sales price of the commodity. The buyers are allowed to browse through the several alternatives, contact the seller, negotiate with them one-to-one and then purchase the item.
The surprising fact is that OLX doesn’t act as a liaison between the buyer and the seller. It acts as a mere catalyst for connecting the two online through a classifieds portal. The conversation, bargaining, advances, and transactions remain between the buyer and seller only. They focus more on the transparency between the two parties trying or are in contact with each other. The high traffic is put to use to earn revenue by monetizing the number of clicks and searches.
OLX has raised a total of $28.5 million over five funding rounds.
Revenue Model
OLX has a total revenue of $2.1 billion and its website has over 35 billion page views. Around 8.5 million transactions happen every month.
A major part of OLX’s revenue comes from Google Ads Monetization. The company works with partners who in-turn works with Google and other ad partners to act as ad supplier and ad mediator for the website.
These Ads works in juxtaposition with the OLX website, and its contents are displayed on the webpage itself. The number of Ad units varies on different pages of the website.
These Ads are managed and controlled by the OLX only.
Another source of revenue for Olx comes from Banner and sponsored ads. As this platform is highly popular and has high traffic coming through. There are many other businesses that want to display their ads or banners.
OLX garners high user traffic through online and TV brand advertisements. OLX monetizes this high customer inflow. It does this on the basis of Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM) and Cost per View for video ads on its home page as well as that on individual product pages till the seller is finally contacted and transacted with.
The main strategy employed by Oxenford behind OLX is working on this online mega-mart in the less developed or developing countries, considering the vast ocean of opportunities here. He doesn’t wish to contend with the stalwarts of the US or UK and earn any competitors on the way.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis Of OLX analyzes the brand based on its strengths weak points, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths of OLX
1. Large Presence: OLX has a presence over 100 different countries. This is a huge quality for the brand. With a strong presence across many countries could result in a large number of users being created using the website.
2. Brand Image: It receives around 1.5 billion page views in a month, which gives a hint of its brand visibility in India. Additionally, it has 200 million users active every monthly, 8.5 million transactions per month as well as the site has 25 million ads. This indicates that the brand is recognized throughout the nation and is well-known to a lot of people. A solid image of the brand appearance is the major factor that makes the brand successful.
3. Strong Backup: OLX is expected to be backed up from Naspers. It has plenty of knowledge and experience working with different online giants. This is because there could be an abundance of inputs from the backup. This is the primary strength for the company.
4. An energizing Advertising Campaign: Strong advertising campaigns have made olx really popular among television viewing audience. Strong advertisements through TVCs, print and online media.
5. OLX has strong positioning in vehicle category with around 850 million page views a month.
6. C2C Market Leader: OLX is India’s market leading company for the C2C market. This is the primary benefit for the company. It has less competition and is another reason to have a large number of users using its platform.
7. There is no specific product: OLX is completely free of limitations with regards to the products. It has an extensive collection of products in which advertisers can put their ads.
8. Business Model: OLX is among the most popular classified websites. Their business structure is distinct, and it presents it in a professional manner. It is an online marketplace that allows people to buy and sell items. It’s available in many cities across India.
9. Huge Market Share: OLX has managed to grab approximately 60 percent of the classifieds online market share. This is a major positive for the brand and its user base has increased to 55 times in the past couple of months. The OLX application has surpassed 3.2 million downloaded in India.
Weaknesses of OLX
1. Technology-oriented: OLX depends heavily upon technology and does not have tools to turn non-internet users into potential customers. This is a major flaw for the company since the number of users could be reduced. Lack of strong features to convert non-internet users as potential clients.
2. No Quality Assurance: Since a lot of buyers and sellers meet online and numerous conversations are conducted on the internet, there is a chance that the quality will fall off. Once the buyer has seen it in the item and is aware of its functions and how to use it, there’s no warranty on the product. It is also an area of weak point for the company’s brand.
3. Online Fraud: Since OLX is an entirely online platform, where people connect online and talk about their purchases and sales it is possible that it will be used in fraudulent activities also.
4. Fake advertisements: Because OLX is an entirely online platform , where sellers have their ads posted There is a chance that fake ads are posted too.
Opportunities of OLX
1. Productivity is Increasing Products: OLX believes there is an even greater potential by diversifying its product listings. There could be a variety of categories of products and this will provide buyers and sellers more options to buyers to browse through their needs.
2. People Choice: This platform is perfect for people who want to buy their items according to their preferences with a lower cost. Therefore, there’s lots of opportunities on this site.
3. Many Sellers: The platform offers many opportunities for sellers since they are able to sell their goods and gain from it. This is why the platform is also seeing an increase in users which in turn leads to an increase in numbers of visitors.
4. Real Estate Property: OLX is also a listing of real estate, and is able to see numerous opportunities to grow.
Threats of OLX
1. Funding of competitors like Quickr by investors.
2. Offline stores like Big Bazaar coming up with marketing campaigns to provided discounts on old goods.
Conclusion
Olx has been in the market for a long time. It has made its place in the market and has gradually increased its user base. Although it is a classified portal. As the core idea behind creating this platform was to provide countries outside the US with something similar to Craigslist.
