Sulekha.com plans to switch its classifieds services to paid model
24 February, 2009
Online classifieds and yellow pages portal Sulekha.com plans to make its classifieds services fully paid in six months to one year, hoping to earn Rs 1 crore as user fee in the first year and take it up to Rs 40-50 crore in about four years.
Currently, Sulekha.com’s classifieds services are being supported by corporate advertisements. But recently the company has seen a 25 per cent drop in its corporate ad revenues, owing to the slowdown, and expects it to go down by about 50 per cent before the end of this fiscal.
“We believe we might just have become indispensable enough to our users to operate as a paid service,” Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha.com, has said. “If the experiment doesn't work out, we can always get back to free mode.” [Source: Economic Times]
Business Process Outsourcing has been the latest mantra in India today.
As the current sources of revenue face slower growth, software companies
are trying new ways to increase their revenues.
URL : http://jobbpo.blogspot.com
I would like to remind Satyaji that you have already experimented this & failed. when you turned the classifieds into a paid one there were not takers in the market. If this happens for a offline product imagine the online market were you have huge competition in classifieds. I think if you are not clear in your mind....since you say that if it doesn't work we would revert it better don't do it. This would turn away many of your visitors. You are unnecessarily jeopardizing your classifieds business.
I did post a free ad to Sulekha Classifieds, and I got good deal after that I am trying to disable my ad then I have received Pay option for my free ad, but it's an option not for compulsion... I don't think its bad idea...
Our remarks were misinterpreted in the report; the clarifications are as follows:
The comment that advertising revenues have dropped 25% and are expected to drop further was made with reference to the general industry trends that we are observing and not pertaining to Sulekha.com specifically.
Sulekha.com Classifieds will continue to be free. We are implementing, however, multiple options where users can *choose* to pay either before they post an ad (for additional premium ad features) or after they have fulfilled their need (if they are satisfied with our services). We remain committed to serving the widest range of transactional needs for users across multiple cities for free…while providing ways for them to pay if they choose to.
"If the experiment doesn't work out, we can always get back to free mode"
Sure that they will have to switch back .... Right now they have "25 per cent drop in its corporate ad revenues" .
when it becomes a paid service , then sulekha will lose its 75% of customers.
There are lot of services with free with the same features as Sulekha. They will get popularise if this is Paid
Excellent Idea- Kindly go ahead- Because the free ads are not at all worth seeing and with Paid ads I expect the results to be much better for the user..
is ad posting will be paid and searching will be free ? Sulekha wants to prove that they are only n only money making company.
It is going to be a bad new for us.
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