e-Commerce is going through a lot of transformation in India as of year 2017-18. e-Commerce hubs like Flipkart.com, Amazon.in, PayTM, Infibeam etc. are facing fierce competition among each other.
Each online retailer in India is trying its best to woo their customers by offering price cuts, discounts and deals, hence, resulting into price difference for same product across different online shopping platforms. For example, iPhone X is available for Rs.89,000 at Amazon India while some seller on Flipkart.com offers iPhone X in just Rs.83,000 and other e-majors are pricing the same for different value, making the situation cumbersome to even find discounted price of a gadget. Now, customer can’t scroll each e-retailer’s website to find the best price deal as it is very time consuming. In these cases, Price comparison websites emerge as the saviour for customers.
Price comparison websites are shopping comparison engines where prices (grabbed from almost all e-retailers) of different products are shown at a single page so that an user can save money as well as their precious time. Revenue model of these websites is simple as they earn by referring sales to the respective online shopping stores. In simpler terms, they work on affiliate marketing model.
e-Commerce websites are forced to enter into partnerships with price comparison websites because almost 71-percent users compare price before going for the final purchase, according to PromptCloud. According to a survey conducted by Compareraja.in, 73.6% users compare price on website while others choose price comparison apps for the purpose. By this data, it can be concluded that price comparison engines plays a major role in online retailers sale. Growth of comparison websites is in fact directly proportional to the growth of e-Commerce websites.
List of Top 11 Price Comparison Websites in India
So, I am listing out the top 11 price comparison websites that are currently functioning in India in year 2017-18. Already, a list is available but it is not updated from a long period and some of websites in the list are not functional at this point of time. That is why I decided to provide a new and updated list of such websites in India. Here goes the list
1. MySmartPrice
MySmartPrice is the leader of price comparison industry in India. It offers price comparison of almost all categories available on online retailers in India. Some of the product categories listed are – fashion, electronics, large appliances, small appliances, health and fitness, accessories etc. It also offers a chrome extension (handy tool that allow users to instantly compare price on e-Commerce websites itself) and an app for mobile users. 1,126,406 users (at the time of writing this listing) are already registered with it and increasing in leaps and bounds. Additionally, it offers extra cashback if registered user make the purchase through it. Living of proper funded business model, it raised $10 million in series B funding from Accel Partners and Helion Ventures in 2015 and continued to maintain that.
2. SmartPrix.com
Another shopping comparison destination with specialized feature of product comparison along with price comparison. SmartPrix provides a wide range of categories like Mobiles, Tablets, Laptops, Cameras, Personal Care Appliances, Books and accessories. It misses out few categories like Fashion and Large Appliances. It also provides expert reviews to products specially of smartphones. Products can be compared here on the basis of specifications and it also produce the winner out of product comparison. Founded in 2011 by Abhinav Chaudhary and Hitesh Khandelwal (both IITians), it is now established engine in the business.
3. 91Mobiles.com
As the name suggests, it specializes in providing price comparisons of Mobiles. It has certain useful interactive tools like Phone Finder and Specs Score which help users to select best smartphone for them. Ranked among Top 500 websites of India (according to Alexa Ranking), 91Mobiles offers categories like Laptops, Televisions, Mobiles etc. It receives around 30 million page views per month, according to its About Us page. It raised $1 million in pre-series A investment from a group of investors led by India Quotient back in 2014 and thereafter continued on itself.
4. PriceDekho.com
PriceDekho.com is one of the leading price comparison website in India that offers great in-depth knowledge about the products. Specializing in areas like Mobiles, Electronic Appliances, Entertainment appliance, Home appliance. It misses out large appliance, fashion and heath categories. Recently, it launched Elite Cashback Club, which allows users to get extra cashback on their purchases referred by the website.
5. LowestOnline.in
Another price comparison website, LowestOnline.in that deals in wide range of categories including Smartphones, Laptops, Televisions, Refrigerators, Air-Conditioners, Washing Machines, Laptops, Water Purifiers, Geysers and electronic accessories. Started in 2016, it has certain specific features like it provides detailed knowledge about products, allow to compare products, provides price comparison from more than 15 e-Commerce stores. Gadget and technology news are the additional recipes provided by the website. As the name suggests, it automatically shows the lowest price of any product available.
6. CompareRaja
Established in 2012, it has optimized itself with the technology very well. CompareRaja has additional tools like apps for windows, iOS and android and browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that allow users to compare price on the go. It provides prices from more than 10 e-stores, deals in more than 40 categories and have more than 1 lac products listed. Interesting feature of this comparison engine is, it allow users to compare flights (powered by SkyScanner). Only problem that I found here is that for few products, its automatic price comparison links to whole different product.
7. BuyingIQ
BuyingIQ attracts over 750,000 shoppers every month, and is now growing by 40 percent month on month. The startup claims that between 1.5 percent to seven percent of visitors click through to other sites and make purchases. BuyingIQ doesn’t sell any products itself but instead directs consumers to the various e-commerce sites where the purchases take place. It offers price comparison in wide range of categories.
8. FindYogi
FindYogi offers price comparison for various categories like mobiles, laptops, cameras, televisions, kitchen appliances. It offers a chrome extension which allow users to compare price of a product on the e-store itself. Again, it is a fully automated comparison engine and links to different products. It lacks manual interference which sometimes provides bad user experience. Otherwise, it is a great website with easy to use interface. It also offers Specs Score, which tells you which is the best product in the town.
9. BuyHatke
BuyHatke started as a browser extension and can be credited for launch of browser extensions that provide shopping comparisons in India. But, Indian community did not receive it well. It forced them to launch the desktop version of their website. Then things went correctly for start-up. Now it stands among top websites to offer price comparisons. It offers deals in various categories like mobiles, books, large appliances etc. Best feature that needs attention is its Tatkal Booking Extension (it allow users to book railway tatkal tickets without fail). It is more of a coupon and deal junction instead of price comparison destination.
10. MobiKart
Mobikart offers lowest price directly on just two categories mobiles and laptops. It tries to provide an ecosystem for mobile deals and succeeds in that as well. Its interactive tools like Phone Search, Tablet Finder, Chrome Extension help users to quickly find price comparison of their desired product. It also provides price graphs (plots history of price of product), video reviews, set price drop alert (you get a notification when the price of product drops) that works well for the users.
11. CompareIndia
CompareIndia is an sub-site of Network 18 website. Being an News18 site, it is blessed with great popularity. It offers deals and comparisons in areas like mobile phones, tablets, home appliances, electronics, computers etc. CompareIndia provides reviews of products to help customers make a best shopping decision. Most preferred e-stores used here are Snapdeal, Amazon and Flipkart.
These are Top 11 comparison websites in India as of 2017-18. Suggestions are welcome through the comments.
