Bag daily deals online, the other way round

BANGALORE, INDIA: What do you normally get on a daily deals portal? Perhaps, loads of products along with their price tags, alluring potential consumers to pick a deal that seems best to them.

Here is an e-commerce portal with a difference. It virtually turns the concept on its head. It seeks requirements of a buyer, price in particular, and makes the sellers bid for it, thereby setting off a competition in the market.

It is MyDeals247, which founder and chairman Venu Somineni refers to as the world's first personalized e-commerce platform. "There is no other (e-commerce) site that connects buyers and sellers real time. All other websites have prices that are static and they are like fish market by putting up everything."

On the other hand, Somineni says that their portal offers personalized solutions, and is a global entity, which is focusing on localized offers.

This is how MyDeals247 works.

First, a buyer identifies self as one, logs in to the portal, checks the category he/she is interested in and enter product requirements, price expectation and preferences.

After that, the portal steps in and alerts relevant sellers on the request. Once sellers get back with their offers, the site sorts them in descending order, with the lowest bid quoted right on top followed by four more next best deals.

"We notify the sellers through three modes, including e-mail and a live ticker. The platform does a favour to both the buyer and the seller, as it is city-specific and category-specific," explains Somineni, Moreover, we have absolutely no inventory. Since it is a reverse model, there is price advantage, too."

So, buyers basically get to see different options for the same product they wanted and get to interact with the seller real-time. They can also reject deals which didn't satisfy their requirements, even if they are in the top-five list. In that case, the deal placed sixth would automatically be pushed up by one rung.

Now, MyDeals247 has offices in Indian cities, including Ahmedabad, Chennai and Hyderabad, and is headquartered in Bangalore, though they launched it first in Palo Alto, California. It has a customer base of 2.1 million in India, besides 1.5 million more in the US.

As for the payment mode, it happens through the portal. "We don't adopt cash on delivery, as people's emotions change all the time. Only after delivery happens, we take our commission," says Somineni. Also, buyers can view the seller info, only after the transaction is completed.

"The moment you complete a deal, you will get a PDF document with a 10-digit number. You can give it to the merchant and after verification for proper records, they confirm the deal. Once it is redeemed, the sale is completed."

MyDeals247 also has a volume-based model. For any item, as the volume goes up, the price comes down proportionally.

As a part of their rural initiative, they have about 660 people, whom they have reached out to and trained on making informed choices on products. "We would like to reach 10,000 people from districts and taluks," says Somineni.

Incidentally, he wears other hats, too. One, that of an author. He has written One Book for Life Success, which has been endorsed by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Jack Canfield and Brian Tracy, among others. The former Microsoft executive is also a motivational speaker, success coach and mentor.