Will Facebook Be Able To Disrupt Olx Or Quikr?

We all are aware of the great success of Facebook, in US as well as three other countries (UK, New Zealand and Australia) for both Android and iPhone app. It seems that it wants to create turmoil in the existing online marketplace, such as the Olx, or Quikr. Facebook currently has 1.7 billion people, and because of this huge number, it is also getting itself involved in to create a platform, where goods and services can be sold. Facebook believes that by doing this, it is going to help people make more use of these connections, by creating a convenient platform to discover, buy, as well as sell items throughout the community.

How Does Facebook Marketplace Work?

The answer to this question depends on your interest, whether you are a buyer, or a seller. If you are a buyer, all you need to do, is tap on the interested product. As soon as this is done, the details of the seller as well as the description of the product are made visible. After this, you can decide to make an offer to the seller, or also keep it in save mode, if revisit of the product is required.

If selling is required, the seller needs to tap on the sell button, and upload the photo of the product to be sold, add a description, price, location, category, and click on the post button. Now, all the seller needs to do is to wait for a message sent by the interested customer.

A specific model is supposed to be formed that is going to explore the way business and consumers work in India.

Does Indian Classifieds Players Need To worry?

Frankly speaking, there is not even a single comparison between Facebook and any other players in India. Ever since the launch of this marketplace in other countries, and the news about it, being launched in India, almost everybody is pondering whether this will eat up all the existing big classifieds in India. Well, this move should definitely worry two types of companies, first one is the one that let people buy or sell goods on their site, and the other one that allow people to find and purchase goods on their site. When we talk about Facebook, we all know that it has a massive reach and clout that might help it to become quite successful in this venture. On the other hand, Naspers owned Olx and Tiger Global backed Quikr are not even a dominant brand anywhere across the globe, just with the exception of a few developing countries. Hence all these Indian classifieds does not even stand a fare on the competition map of Facebook.

At a point where Indian classifieds industry is expected to grow three folds to $1.2 billion by 2020. It was also estimated that these classifieds will corner about 30 per cent of the shares. Facts also suggests that non metro cities, such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Kochi etc., there has been a fourfold increase in local searches for e-services, Automobiles, and real estate. So obviously, this move by Facebook is definitely going to be a worrying move for these classifieds.

Expected Problems To Be Faced By Facebook In Indian Market

There are several hindrances that Facebook needs to eliminate in order to counter all the existing Indian classifieds. First of all, Facebook needs to show the availability of product in neighborhood localities. Because if the product is not available in a nearby areas, the users will automatically switch to either Olx or Quikr. Hence, Facebook needs to design this intuitively, so that it would be able to lend a great user experience. One fact that is noticed in these market place is that the classifieds platform has millions of listings, but when it comes to locality or sub locality levels, there are not enough of the products. Hence, this is a very important that Facebook needs to remove. Also, Facebook must make sure that the number of users should be high with high frequency of visits. The quality of the content must be matched with user’s expectations.