The Emerging Classifieds In India Presskr

Presskr.com is synonymous with online classified sites in India. Started in 2014, this simple, easy to use Indian classifieds portal, offering free ad-posting services has widely gained popularity in a very short span. An online platform where buyers and sellers meet, Presskr helps small and medium enterprises a great extend as they could reach the huge internet-savvy market without spending anything on advertising.

Presskr today serves over 2.7 million users a month and is ranking 5162 by Alexa India respectively. It has won the Red Herring Asia 2015, among the 100 “most promising” companies in Asia driving the future of technology and is shortlisted among 100 finalists for Business World Young Entrepreneur Awards in November 2015.

The brain behind the Presskr is the young entrepreneur Mr. Mohammad P Nazim. His story is a rare one as to how a website grew without any funding or a big budget.

Excerpts from an e-mail interview with Mr. Mohammad P Nazim, CEO of Presskr.com

 
What inspired you to come up with this idea?

I come from a business background, so it was natural for me to follow the same steps. A regular job is exciting but the satisfaction one gets by creating something is always different. Internet classifieds have always been one of my interest areas when I was in college.  Although many opportunities came across when I was working with the Aegis, I saw a great scope in this field. I decided to take up the challenge and the honour of helping a common man to reach out to the masses for free and thereby making a contribution to the overall growth of the Indian economy.

 

About the team in Presskr?

Presskr started with a small team of 4 people in December 2014. Today it has grown into a team of 20 people with varied expertise. I am happy to have a dedicated close-knit team that understands business requirements well.

How did you achieve this publicity?

We have nearly 2.7 million unique monthly users. It has taken us a span of years to reach where we stand. We constantly innovate and strive harder to listen to the users and create what they want rather than making them use what we create.

How different is Presskr from the competitors?

Our major competitors are websites in general classifieds space, however big or small. The fact that Presskr is absolutely free and gives an advantage of further reach is what differentiates us from the rest. We have a member section where our users can keep a track of their ads.

Hurdles faced and lessons learnt?

Life is a journey for me with regular ups and downs. Initially when we saw growth happening on the site, we added various services for users thinking that the users would hook on to these. However, later we realised that the new features were not being used at all. On digging deep we concluded that the users did not have problem using the site even without these features.

It is important to first understand the pain points of the users & then design a solution accordingly, not the other way.


What are sources of revenue?

We are presently 100% ad supported. We keep exploring additional options. However, one thing is for sure, we will keep ad posting free of cost.

 

How do you make the site spam free?

This is a worrisome fact for all classifieds players, especially when ad posting is free. We have tried to address them with some automated online filters. However, since automated checks can only do so much, we also keep checking ads randomly at our end & filter spams.

Future plans?

The company has plans to launch a host of new features and add-ons on the site with an objective of taking user experience to the next level. Recently launched facilities including a new design and city wise filtered search have received overwhelming response from the users. We expect to reach to a total of 100 cities by the end of April 2016.