Ranjan Das, MD, Buying Engine is an enterprising innovator with over 24 years of strategizing and marketing for over 75 top of the line MNCs, and has launched more than 12 global brands in India and shaping & launching 15 plus successful start-ups with their founders.

What is the basic concept on which Buying Engine operates?

Formed to improve customers' buying experience by populating better buying options on meta aggregation platforms aggregating from the entire universe of etail and retail marketplaces, Buying Engine has evolved over time. It helps consumers search, spot, assort and buy faster, saving as much as 70% of consumer's time and approximately 30% of consumers' budget. Growing ahead of ever changing buying behaviour of consumers, Buyingengine is emerging as a unique interaction platform between brands and consumers, focused to help brands spend more and more on consumers rather than for the consumer, helping consumers and many more new and direct pocketable benefts from the brands.

What kind of challenges are you facing in your entrepreneurial journey?

All overnight success takes about 10 years and my struggle is to make it considerably shorter. Every path breaking idea takes time for industry to accept and support, especially when the majority of investments these days are happening on a trend leaving new ideas high and dry taking longer to find the right investment partners.

Other than investment taking time to come, there are many technological challenges that supply and demand side face, especially when you are aggregating more than 100 marketplaces and ecommerce brands on one platform, streamlining their mega load of data for a simplified set of results that's light, easy and useful. As we are cracking new grounds while bootstrapped, we make conscious efforts towards targeted innovation using low cost or free technology for the same results that an expensive solution available instantly would have produced. All of this slows us down, despite us being an agile bunch of talented professionals. Despite all of these challenges we have been the thought leaders in many respects as our First ever in the industry features like Whatsapp&Shop, BuySimilar, DealForcast, BestBuy, AutoFindCoupon, WantSomethingElse were seen on many other ecommerce platforms after being launched on BuyingEngine.
 

How would you sum up the history of Buying Engine, from the beginning to the present?

Buying Enegine has been a roller coaster ride as we have seen many peaks and many nadirs during our journey since 2019. While we feel flattered and revalidated by many of our features which found second homes with top ecommerce players, our struggle with the mismatch on demand and supply of data types and dependency on affiliate models etc has slowed us down many times.

Right at the beginning of the first covid lock down we realised how irreversibly dependent we were on the affiliate model, as almost all brands stopped their affiliate programs for a while. We were out of business for the entire period while these major affiliate programs were on pause. This is what triggered the current pivot. We are restructuring now evolving in a brand that has the brand pull and the consumer base that all major brands will like to be with.

What is the USP of BE? How does BE outsmart its competitors in the Ecom space?

Committed to elevating and changing the buying experience of all consumers, BE scores above all others through an intelligent and easy buying process. It saves you almost 30% money and almost 70% time while buying from the etail and retail universe.

'Buy Anything, Free', once launched would be the biggest USP that may very well rede?ne how the very ecommerce industry works. All Premium Members of BuyingEngine would earn real cash in their BE wallets for their multiple interactions and events on BE platform, which against the popular assumption won't be anything like loyalty or gambling points etc. This accumulated real cash in the premium members' wallet can be used to buy anything available on meta aggregation of BE platforms, actually making the buying free, absolutely free. These limited numbers of premium membership can be pre-booked for Rs.100/- only, at the start of the pre-book campaign and may serge to Rs.3000/- or more close to its launch of 'Buy Anything, Free', feature.

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on Buying Engine's business?

Covid-19 had an adverse impact on us as most of the affiliate programs paused their campaigns, forcing us to rethink our strategy and main stay.

As every cloud has a silver lining, we saw a much larger picture in pivoting the brand making it a platform that helps consumers rule the brands,

Where does India's ecommerce industry stand in comparison to other countries when it comes to online shopping?

Despite COVID-19 challenges, India's e-commerce market continues to grow at 5%, with expected sales of US$ 56.6 billion in 2021, US$ 188 billion by 2025and is expected to surpass the US to become the second largest E-commerce market in the world by 2034. India is land of product innovation and new entrants in the ecommerce start-ups are leaving no stone unturned in bringing around new aspects and values, benefiting customers directly with more pocketable benefits. Supported by supportive policies by the Govt, Indian ecommerce is all set to surprise the world.

What is your growth trajectory?

We have two bursts in our immediate plan. The first one being the launch of 'Buy Anything, Free' premium membership pre-book campaign aimed at 10 million downloads helping us raise the seed capital for technological developments, govt permission, necessary licences and marketing. With a conservative calculation of an ATV of INR 500/- a month the MTV is projected to reach INR 500 Million a month towards the 4th quarter of the first year with YTR of INR 3500 Million, after launch of 'Buy Anything, Free'. Expecting to grow at 3X rate in the second year, Buying engine is planned to reach English speaking international markets soon after the series A, as our plug and play modules are ready to be launched in any country with lead time or 3-4 months or less, post we receive regulatory clearances. 'Buy Anything, Free' will change the face of ecommerce and how brands sell and consumers buy products and services. Till then we are putting in everything it takes to make it reach the destination

Source: https://www.smeworld.asia/sme-digital-magazine.aspx#.YZc2-1NX4zQ