SUPERBRANDS 2015
superbrandsindia.com
It’s a world crammed with goods and services – by millions who want to sell and millions more who want to buy. This
exceptional bazaar can absorb everything from cars and furniture to electronics and mobiles. This is the versatile and
intriguing territory that OLX – India’s largest marketplace for used goods – presides over. Every month OLX India gets
more than 2.50 billion page-views (as of September 2015). The magnitude of that number can be understood when one
considers that before OLX entered India, the market for consumer-to-consumer (C2C) used products barely existed. From
starting out as the market creator to emerging as the market leader, OLXs journey in India has been a fascinating one.
Market
There are two distinct types of Indians. One
is steeped in emotion and caught in a web of
memories, refusing steadfastly to let go. He
continues to savour the old arm chair, now
puckered with the ravages of time; the empty
book shelf that was once the pride of the drawing
room; a microwave oven that now sits in the loft;
his first mobile phone; an old watch that is lying
in the cupboard, alone and forlorn and other
such delicate memories suffused in nostalgia. But
he is now slowly waking up to one fact: there is
value locked up in these. According to the OLX
Consumer Research on Used Goods and Selling
Trends (CRUST) 2015, the market for used goods
in just urban India stands at C56,200 crore.
The other Indian is more aspirational, pragmatic
and open-minded. He has a three-year-old car
that he wants to sell to buy an SUV, a 32” LCD
television set that he wants to replace with a 42”
LED or exchange his 16 GB mobile phone, less
than four-months-old, to buy a 64 GB next-gen
model that has just been launched. The increasing
disposable incomes and growing desire for a
better lifestyle is leading Indians to upgrade faster
than ever before, creating a parallel economy of
used goods in the process.
The Indian market for saleable new and
used goods, partially due to a high dose of
consumerism and partly because people are
gradually easing their hold on nostalgia, is
exploding. Millions of people are in search of
disposing things off.
The market for second-hand goods in India
has traditionally been highly dependent on
middlemen, who take away a substantial amount
of the sale proceeds. There was always a latent
need for a C2C market in India, which was fulfilled
by OLX. OLX has given an opportunity to sellers
and buyers to interact directly with each other
and transact at the place, price and with the
person of their choice. OLX has empowered
sellers and buyers to have full control of the
transaction and maximise the value of the product
without paying any commission to the middlemen.
Achievements
OLXs biggest achievement has been the
successful creation of a market that hardly existed
in the past. Indians take time to change their
habits and behaviour and OLX is happy to be at
the forefront of that change. From either disposing
goods or giving them away for an unfair price,
people are now maximising the value of their
used product by selling them on OLX.
OLX did not just create the market; they
captured it completely. They have clear market
leadership and are five times bigger than their
closest competitor. They are also more than six
times bigger than all online marketplaces for used
vehicles in India.
To underscore its supremacy, an independent
research based report by leading global financial
firm, Morgan Stanley, published on 5th February,
2015 stated OLX as the market leader within
C2C e-commerce by a wide margin. The report
titled India internet and ecommerce Asia insight:
decoding what India does on Internet says that the
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majority of users on OLX have had an excellent
user experience.
OLX India has also bagged various awards to
add to their list of achievements. It is the number
one classified app in India on Google Play (as of
Oct 15, 2015). It is also the only classified player
in India to be among the top 10 searched terms
by Google Zeitgeist 2014 and 2015.
Apart from that, the company has also received
the fifth Most Trusted online Brand of the Year by
the Trust Research Advisory’s Brand Trust Report
2014 and 2015. It was also ranked 2nd among
e-commerce websites in India by Surewaves
Buzziest Brands in 2014 and was among the Pitch
Top 50 Brands in India in 2014 and 2015.
Its brand campaign, Womaniya – Phone ko
Banaao Sell Phone – and a 360-degree campaign
featuring the popular comedian, Kapil Sharma,
won two Effie Awards in 2015. OLX also bagged
two Abbys at the Goa Fest 2015 – Gold for
OLXs Collectors Ride and Bronze for the Best
Use of Sponsorship with the show, Look Who’s
Talking. OLX has also won the GSF Mobile Appies
award for the Best Classifieds app in India. To its
credit are two more awards that it won at the
Asian Customer Engagement Forum for the radio
scripts for Kuch Keemat Bhi, Kuch Keemti Bhi and
its Sellers Wanted campaign.
While the company was busy gaining
recognition at important forums, its chief
executive officer for South Asia, Amarjit Singh
Batra, was receiving the Digital Person of the
Year award instituted by Indian Digital Media.
He was also recognised as the Marketer of
the Year – E-commerce, by the International
Advertising Association.
History
In 2006, Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda, two
heavyweights in the dot com industry, had a
brilliant idea for an online classifieds site. Having
OLX
olx.in
OLXs popularity, strength and reach can be
gauged from the fact that the portal’s vehicle
category alone receives more than a billion page
views each month. Given the large number
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Things you didn’t know about
OLX
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OLX has had a long
and eventful journey
with several significant
milestones achieved
during promotions.
OLX India’s unique
communication, OLX
pe bech de! has become
synonymous with selling. Terms like OLX pe bech
de! OLX kar do! and just OLX it! have seeped into
the language of the young and have become part
of their everyday lexicon.
A specifically targeted communication strategy
for consumers and their specific needs was
adopted by OLX.in in which they launched an
Effie Award winning campaign Womaniya, which
highlighted the benefits of mobile classifieds,
especially for women. The campaign showcased
an empowered, smart and vivacious woman
protagonist and also reinforced the ease and
simplicity of the OLX mobile app with the
tagline Phone ko Banaao Sell Phone, which found
resonance amongst millions of Indians.
The next milestone was the campaign Bech
De Revolution featuring Kapil Sharma for the first
time in a unique avatar of a bike,
wall clock and a mixer. This led
to increased brand awareness
and brand equity. Kapil Sharma
created magic in North India
while celebrities like Dhanush in
Tamil Nadu, Allu Arjun in Andhra
Pradesh and Sudeep in Karnataka
stirred the southern markets.
This was for the first time
that any brand had attempted
such localisation that led to huge
OLX believes in empowering people externally
as well as internally. It provides the freedom to
consumers to decide on the price of the product,
who they want to sell to and where they want
to sell it. This is also true for employees who
are given the freedom to take decisions and
experiment without the fear of failure.
Passion, transparency and innovation are at the
heart of what OLX does. The brand believes that
original thinking and curiosity lead to innovation.
OLX, therefore, urges employees to constantly
challenge themselves.
In such a dynamic and competitive environment
there is a need to act fast and keep pace with the
even faster changing technology. More than five
years ago, OLX became one of the first online
companies to focus on developing a mobile app.
This is where the future was.
It would seem that being first off the block is in
the DNA of the organisation.
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Recent Developments
Promotion
Brand Values
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OLX is an online platform for locally connecting
buyers and sellers of used goods. It is available
across platforms of OLX website, m-web and
mobile app, which can be downloaded across all
mobile and tablet platforms.
A feature that sets OLX apart from every
other online marketplace is that it empowers its
consumers with the ability to buy and sell
products across the entire spectrum of
consumer and durable goods – ranging
from vehicles, mobiles, furniture, home
appliances, computers and laptops
and from sports goods to baby items,
clothing, musical instruments, property,
services and jobs amongst other
categories.
The platform contains 100% usergenerated Ad content. The brand – OLX.
in – never calls users to post Ads on their
behalf. It follows stringent rules to ensure
quality and genuine postings to maintain
good consumer experience.
Recently, it has added several new product
features like the chat facility, which gives buyers
and sellers the option of communicating with each
other directly, the pre-inspected automobiles by
experts that gives the potential buyer heightened
assurance of the quality of the used vehicle and
the multiple location filter so that buyers can
look for deals in their preferred area. The mobile
app can also automatically detect location which
makes it more convenient.
is also evolving with time and features like
car inspection, chat facility, automatic location
detection etc. have been added recently to ensure
an excellent consumer experience.
The brand communication has also seen
recent change in the way OLX talks to its
consumers. With Bech De firmly established
across the country, OLX is now moving beyond
communicating just the monetary benefits of using
the brand.
This has led to the
creation of a new
message, Kuch Keemat Bhi,
Kuch Keemti Bhi.
success, creating brand affinity and
breaking barriers each region had in
selling used goods.
This high decibel celebrity campaign
was followed by another stirrer: Let
the old make way for the new. This
upgraded the OLX story and took
the communication to another level
by urging consumers to adapt to
their changing needs and desires by
constantly upgrading.
Reaching deep into the consumers’
mind, OLX discovered a simple human
insight: consumer delight when they
receive a return greater than expected. This
little emotion has been captured in OLXs latest
campaign: Kuch Keemat Bhi, Kuch Keemti Bhi.
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Product
of choices and
the spread of
the country, the
response is as
encouraging. On an
average a seller is
able to sell within
just the first two
days of posting
an Ad.
The product
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been supported by investors that backed many
of the most successful Internet start-ups such
as Facebook, Geni, LinkedIn, Skype and Staple,
OLX was received as a cracker of an idea. They,
along with a small team located in Buenos Aires,
Argentina recruited the best in the industry and
developed a top-notch product, both web and
mobile, to offer a free and useful platform to
trade locally.
OLX targeted its business at the emerging
markets because they saw higher potential here.
The mobile internet revolution was just
beginning and people were seeking an
easy and convenient way to make and
save money through trading.
Today, OLX is the world’s leading
online classified platform present in over
40 emerging markets around the world.
It not only provides a single platform
for buyers and sellers to meet but
also helps people improve their lives
through direct, person-to-person trade.
The company has 1200 committed
employees worldwide, located in
Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Cape Town,
Delhi, Jakarta, Lagos, Lisbon, Manila,
Nairobi, Poznan, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
OLX is less than ten years old
OLX has been marketing for only the
last four years in India
Each month, OLX receives more
than 2.50 billion page-views (as of
September 2015)
OLX has a presence in 40 countries
and is the unchallenged leader in 25
markets
In terms of brand awareness,
OLX is five times bigger than its
closest competitor
Outside of Silicon Valley, OLX is the
largest global start-up
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