December 03, 2015
Shopping Search Engine Pricebook Turns 2 Years Old, Digging Even Deeper For Smart Buying & Selling
JAKARTA (12/3) – Today, 3rd of December, Pricebook has reached its 2 years milestone in Indonesia as a gadget shopping search engine. It has seen definite growth over the past year, capturing the tide of the rise of internet users and the intensifying ecommerce battle in Indonesia. Now it is set to evolve into a new form of business as a one stop platform for all market players.
According to APJII document of Indonesia Internet User Profile 2014, the increase of gadget sales is one of the main factor that boost the internet usage in Indonesia. In 2014, smartphone sales enjoyed 68% increase while tablet was 82%. Gadget demand has been increasing ever since.
With this funding, Pricebook will further accelerate its strategies to evolve into a marketing platform for both online & offline retailers based on Pricebook’s current price/product database. Pricebook will expand its team and speed up on partner acquisition, aiming for the No.1 online platform to resolve issues surrounding businesses and consumers in emerging markets. For a note, this is the 2nd round of funding following the investment from Incubate Fund (Honma Masahiko) in September 2013.
Pricebook has a mission to minimize the various opportunity losses happening in the market with the power of internet, data and stakeholder network. In the last 2 years, shopping search engine Pricebook.co.id, a must-read guide for choosing the best product at the best shop at the best timing, has kept its focus on electronics category while the others rushed to expand categories for reach. As a result, Pricebook has been able to fully invest in building a platform to fill the information gaps in the electronics retail market, one being always providing the best price for shoppers.
Find The Best Gadget and The Best Price
As a shopping search engine, Pricebook has integrated in its website offers from 30,000+ online shops, such as Lazada, Blibli, Bukalapak, Tokopedia and Bhinneka to name a few. In addition, what makes Pricebook totally unique is it has over 1,000 physical shops registered, all checked face-to-face by the staffs to guarantee shop’s quality and safety.
This online & offline integration strategy allows Pricebook users to compare prices from shops way more than they can do so themselves, even up to 400 shops at once, increasing the chance of finding the best offer. From the study of Pricebook’s top 100 smartphones, Pricebook’s lowest price is in average 20% lower than the average price, proving the necessity for careful price research before purchase. What’s more, Pricebook’s price competitiveness applies even against other comparison sites. When Pricebook team researched the top 10 laptop prices against 4 other sites, all of the best prices could only be found on Pricebook.
It is not just price that Pricebook puts emphasis on however, security and convenience is a must. Therefore, physical shops registered in Pricebook have photos of their shop taken by Pricebook team, described with data such as address, phone number, payment, and delivery options to help users to be fully informed.
When users are interested in a shop after the comparison, they can visit the online shop or make an SMS inquiry to the physical shops. If not sure which product or shop to choose, users can also send the question/inquiry to all the shops matching your prefence.
Through this platform design, Pricebook has steadily been generating matches between the shopper and the seller. Pricebook now serves as one of the few media partners for famous e-commerce sites and is providing physical shops with numbers of leads. Triee, one of the partner shops, has shared, "Our shop gets 10 or more phone calls and SMS each day." Another computer seller in Mangga Dua Mall congratulates Pricebook’s anniversary as “After PNP Computer joined Pricebook a few months back, our revenue has increased by 30%. Happy birthday Pricebook”. In such a way, side by side with shoppers and sellers, Pricebook has more than tripled the traffic in the last 12 months.
3rd Year: Welcoming the New Stage
Pricebook doesn’t limit its ambition only to aggregate what is already in the market. Pricebook is on to a new stage now: to empower the truly competitive businesses by clearing up the opacity & inefficiency in the supply chain and seeking for benefits together with them as "Team Pricebook".
The details remain to be undisclosed, yet Pricebook is on its way to organize every stock & flow data in the market, which partially are already being shared to Pricebook's network of 1000+ retail shops to help them optimize their business operations, leaving shop with more room for price discount. All are in line to pave the way to win benefits for everyone: Brands & Distributors gain a reach to a huge pool of SME retailers, retailers will be able to cut cost, and shoppers enjoy the specially lowered price. Pricebook, serving as a basic business tool for all, provides itself multiple revenue points that cannot be done without.
Also, Pricebook will be seeking for the third funding round in early 2016.
The challenge is indeed huge, but always being the data-driven team from start and never losing focus, Pricebook will surely evolve into a gateway for all shoppers & sellers in Southeast Asia.
Comments from Partners/Fans
“As far as I know in Indonesia, Pricebook is the fastest growing price comparison media about smartphone and gadgets. The company is growing because it is only Pricebook who can aggregate all the price and product data dynamically both from offline stores as well as online shops. Offline shopping market is still the majority of total commerce market in Indonesia, however most of the existing price comparison media are just simply comparison of the data only from ecommerce sites. That is not good enough for end users who need to make a decision on what to buy, where to buy, when to buy, and how much to pay. I believe next generation of price comparison media player will be the company who can integrate both online and offline data from manufacturers, wholesellers, retails shops, and ecommerce sites. And this is the direction where Pricebook is going.” (Masahiko Honma of Incubate Fund, investor of Pricebook)
“SEA's electronics supply & retail operation is far from what it looks like in developed countries. Pricebook has been steadily adding assets to solve the inefficiency remaining in the market, surely evolving into an infrastructure that every shopper and business must have.” (Kazuhiko Miyama of Global Brain, investor of Pricebook)
“The bible of electronic price comparison with the latest gadgets in the market” (Aninda Hadiwardoyo, Lazada Indonesia, business partner of Pricebook)
“Wow, iPhone 6 price is much cheaper in physical shops than online. I wish I had known there is such a big difference.” (Diah, student at STIKOM Interstudi)
About Pricebook.co.id
Pricebook is a Shopping Search Engine and Business Optimization System specialized for Indonesia's electronics market. In Pricebook, user can find the best offer from online and offline shop data that has been integrated in Pricebook comparison engine.
Established in 2013 by Tomonori Tsuji from Japan. Pricebook has received funding twice from notable global investors: Incuate Fund, Global Brain Corporation, IMJ Investment Partners and Hiro Mashita.
Data source
Marius, P., et al. Profil Pengguna Internet Indonesia 2014. Jakarta: APJII, 2015.
Infographic/Logo
Infographic 2 years anniversary of Pricebook (Download as PDF)
Download Logo (ZIP)
Contact Information
marketing@pricebook.co.id