For sellers, just a few clicks with a little bit of information and pictures, then they can up and running, put their stuff out and sell. For buyers, it’s all about being able to find the things they are looking for hassle free.
“We make it easy for you as a seller to open up your products, sellers have something to sell, or find someone who wants your products. Dealfish connect these two groups of people as easy and flexible as possible,” said Tiwa York, Sanook Online managing director of e-commerce.
After running for over seven years, the company has now adjusted the model with its new Dealfish to better fit the behaviour of Thai people.
Dealfish.co.th is the locally focused person-to-person (P2P) community marketplace connecting buyers and sellers by location in Thailand. By leading with location-focused navigation, Dealfish is able to more accurately connect individuals to the things they are looking for while delivering a more targeted audience to people and businesses wanting to sell their goods and services.
“Someone who is in Lampang wants to sell a sofa, and of course the buyer wants to see the sofa, it’s easy if he is in Chiang Mai, but it doesn’t make sense to sell to a buyer in Had Yai,” said the managing director.
On the front page of dealfish.co.th, buyers can easily find products and services based on provinces and categories, including real estate, electronics, fashion, and more. The P2P marketplace is the step one of e-commerce, where the company has also expanded the market by leading visitors further to www.shopping.co.th. Tiwa said everyone had the same needs _ trust, ease and immediate. Buyers wanted abundance of choices, the right things at great deals, while sellers wanted a large audience, low fees, qualified leads and both parties prefer easy communication. “Here is the right place for individuals, and for SMEs that don’t have enough budget to advertise in a newspaper. This can be a channel for them, which is free. It makes it easy for them to reach buyers.”
Citing pest control service as an example of course customers want somebody in the area near them. In the past they might have to walk around their neighbourhood and found the service number at the post office or the air-con cleaning service which Tiwa said he loses their number every time he wanted to call them. “We bring this type of service online and this is very open marketplace for people to connect,” he said.
A handbag maker in Lampang who has a shop in the province and also offers products now has another channel to reach more buyers with the Dealfish site. A refrigerated truck business who offers services between Nong Kai and Laos could get more customers after it posts its details on the website.
Today there are some 4,000 active sellers on the website, the basic service is offered free of charge and the company will release “freemium” model with a service fee to the power sellers who want added value functionality in August or September.
Classified is a market, a destination on its own. Dealfish is about connecting buyers and sellers and we make it clear with value proposition. “We believe that it’s really just a platform for sanook, content is king, platform is queen. We need it to be relevant for consumers to access” said the managing director.
Dealfish has some 55,000 daily visitors, ranked the third in the market, and it aims to be number one by this year. E-commerce in Thailand is at a very early stage, there is no dominate player and this is where Sanook sees the opportunity. The company estimated that the value of the e-commerce market this year will increase by 50% over 2011.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/computer/281958/e-commerce-easily
News from the Bangkok Post