How does OLX make money?

Replies

• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  vipul chadha

  Write & what do you think about olx.in

  Maybe this one calls for a new thread? To answer your question - the business model followed by OLX is same as most of the existing classifieds website. They basically duplicate the revenue model established by the newspapers; but have unique advantage of the Internet. Let me explain it a bit in more detail.
  
  You may wonder how does OLX make money because it does not charge even a single rupee to create your free posting on their site. Let's see how they do it.
  
  Online Advertising:
  This is one of the major source of revenue for OLX, Quickr and other websites. You will see that all of their product listing pages will have advertisements running next to them. So, if you have listed a mobile phone on OLX, it's likely that OLX will show other mobile related advertisements on the same page.
  
  What happens is that if a potential buyer is looking at your classified listing, OLX will hope that the buyer may as well check for the other options as well. If the potential buyer clicks on the advertisements shown along side of your product, OLX makes money.
  
  OLX will even make money for every thousand or so impressions; it's called CPM in the digital marketing business. So more the visitors, the more is OLX's earning potential. If you analyse this business model - it's very interesting! OLX gets paid for the classifieds listed by their users. That's the reason they motivate you to put more classifieds.
  
  Promoted / Paid / Premium Classifieds:
  
  Keep in mind that most of the online classified operators will ask you if you wish to promote your listing among the other. So if you are selling your juicer and there are several other people selling their juicer online, OLX will ask how many sellers are willing to 'promote' their listing. If any of the seller pays OLX money, it will put that seller's product listing above others.
  
  You may say that it's not a fair game, but come on; that's how OLX makes lot money!
  
  
  Key Takeaways: OLX does not own or control any of the inventory that they list on their website. They simply act as mediator that connects the buyers with the sellers. The money transaction is completely handled by the end users; and OLX is not involved in any of the transaction. It makes money by having users visit their website, watch advertisements and also by paying them to promote the listings.
  
  Isn't it an interesting model? Do share your views.
• 

  sauhard

  OLX.in is india's biggest cross trading website. The website receives a massive traffic flow. This traffic flow is advertising treasure. The most of the money comes from the unique advertising banner and ads from 3rd parties. THey usually charge very high.
  Just for example- thepiratebay makes a maximum of €20,000 profit out of 1 single ad for ONE DAY!
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  OLX makes money through two major ways: Online advertisements that run along the various classified posted by people. Then they will also let you promote your classifieds on their own website for a price.
  
  I don't see any other revenue stream for their business.
• 

  Manish Goyal

  Kaustubh Katdare

  OLX makes money through two major ways: Online advertisements that run along the various classified posted by people. Then they will also let you promote your classifieds on their own website for a price.
  
  I don't see any other revenue stream for their business.

  By Selling User's data? 😛
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  Manish Goyal

  By Selling User's data? 😛

  Well, that happens with every advertisement program that runs online. Some do it directly, some do it indirectly. In case of OLX, they run Google Advertisements and promoted listings. I doubt they sell user data directly.
• 

  Ankita Katdare

  Sorry for bumping an old discussion. A friend was discussing about this with me the other day and I remembered reading about it on CE.
  
  Well, as of now people are saying they operate on outside investment are not making much profits. At first, I assumed that OLX would keep commission on whatever products that the sellers are selling, but that's not the case. They just provide the platform and do not fiddle between the seller and buyer.
  
  So, when you check their website, you will see the advertisements in the form of Sponsored links. Here's a screenshot I took -
  
  
  
  That's what the Ads look like, when their colors and fonts are made to match the rest of the content of the page. People end up thinking there are no ads. 😀
• 

  micheal john

  Ankita Katdare

  Sorry for bumping an old discussion. A friend was discussing about this with me the other day and I remembered reading about it on CE.
  
  Well, as of now people are saying they operate on outside investment are not making much profits. At first, I assumed that OLX would keep commission on whatever products that the sellers are selling, but that's not the case. They just provide the platform and do not fiddle between the seller and buyer.
  
  So, when you check their website, you will see the advertisements in the form of Sponsored links. Here's a screenshot I took -
  
  
  
  That's what the Ads look like, when their colors and fonts are made to match the rest of the content of the page. People end up thinking there are no ads. 😀

  nice trick😁
• 

  kavaskarvee

  How do olx and quikr generate revenue?
  
  Dear friends-olx and quikr does not want to earn revenue at initial stage. They are popularizing their website now. If they had enough valuable customers in future, there is a chance for taking the following decisions
  
  
  1. They may charge/ per advertisement or any other service provided in future, that too they may collect revenue through your mobile with the help of mobile operator.
  
  
  2. Customers are their valuable asset, so by showing that, they can generate loans from banks or other forms like share market etc .if they get enough revenue they will manage and continue their business or other wise they will run away from the business.
  
  
  
  Finally i would like to tell that if there is any mistake in their long term strategy. then there is a chance of collapsing the countries economy.
• 

  Ankita Katdare

  Thank you for that answer #-Link-Snipped-#
  
  I am guessing that OLX doesn't focus much on Google Adsense advertisements. The major source of income has to be the offering of premium services.
  
  List your products for selling for free, but charge money when the user wants their product to get highlighted.
  
  I think it must be frustrating to see your product listed on OLX, but not getting any buyers for it as on searching your listing appears at the end of the page.
  
  That's how you are compelled to get the OLX premium service and that's how OLX makes a ton of money.
• 

  R Prasanna Chandran

  There are more ways for them to make money.
  
  1) Alliances marketing: Eg., if you are buying a pet, may be helping you with nearest to your home: Vet/Pet food store would be useful. So listing a Vet/Pet food store will be a win-win for both the parties.
  
  This can be extrapolated for other products too.
  
  Listing of such long term stand-alone vendors would come in as a Paid service. Vendor gets more leads/prospects from Quikr/Olx.
  
  2) They can for an extra premium, filter out a fake/casual seller/buyer from the platform. I agree when 1000 odd people have viewed your advertisement, Quikr/Olx makes money in CPI model. But user experience is not getting any better till the user meets his objective.
  
  I get 1000 odd viewers, but none of them have actually called me/made an enquiry. Half of them just window-shopped and few just whiled away.
  
  Filtering out serious buyers/sellers from the Junta crowd for a very nominal amount will meet the user experience objective and help in making money for the website.
  
  Sulekha tried this, by asking you to enter your mobile number/email id for further getting contact of seller...may be in the same line more innovation would help.
  
  3) An option of collecting "Token advance" from buyer/seller little away from the current offline model can attract payment companies/banks, based on per transaction done on website you again make money. This needs to weighed against the costs involved in introducing the model, outsourcing the same can be explored.
  
  Final transaction happens offline only, and the seller gets his token advance once buyer has taken receipt of the product.
  
  This way, both seller and buyer can be rest assured about their sale and agreed price.
  
  And if we sit for another day or so, we will get more and more ideas......on how to monetize further...😀
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  OLX Business Model has evolved over a period of time to suite the Indian consumers. They have kept their "freemium" model under which the users posting advertisements do not pay anything to OLX unless they want their listing to be "featured" - meaning it will appear at the top of other similar listings.

  They have launched Premium Advertising Solution through which the clients are charged based on the type of listing - a high value listing is typically offered at higher advertising price. 

  This approach seems to be benefitting buyers and sellers as well. The listings that are "Urgent" are typically placed at the top of other listings which makes it easy for the buyers to spot it. 

  Apart from it, OLX continues to feature Google Adsense and direct advertisements from advertisers on their website. Those are the top ways OLX makes money through their unique business model. 

• 

  Michael Pigford

  As long as no one gets robbed apart from is this what happened to me.