Initially we had Online stores, the second wave saw online price aggregators. Now, startups combining both price aggregation and features such as cashback, deals , coupons are emerging. It is a good trend, as it helps customers save to the maximum while buying online. While stand alone price aggregators tend to be more powerful in terms of features, the hybrid models could save customers some money.
Waroze, co-founded by Sunasra Manzur, Hasan and Imdad wants to combine price aggregation and cashback to give the best bang for the buck. While Sunasra and Hasan look after Marketing and help it get the growth momentum, where Imdad looks after the product development.Apart from the core team, they have three more members, and the team is a good blend of youth and experience where the youngest member is just 18 years of age and the most experienced is 30.
Sunasra has been associated with two startups so far, and being able to draw good number of potential users to the websites using SEO and online marketing is one strength he carries forward for Waroze. We have a quick chat with him to understand more about Waroze:
What is the idea behind creating Waroze?
Whenever we want to do a new online purchase, we look for lowest price on the web. But when we perform lowest price search, either we get aggregator’s providing price comparisons at product level or sites providing cash-back at store level. We always wanted to get best of both the worlds, price comparison at product level with cash-back. So we built Waroze to solve this problem.
When is Waroze launched and what kind of traction has it seen so far?
From launching our beta two months back, we have now reached around 20 transactions per week. Not a big milestone, but we have just started and things are getting in place.
How does cashback work at Waroze?
As a concept it is quite simple. User can select the product, compare the prices and just proceed to buy. Once the transaction is completed, retailers pay us commission, part of which we give back to user as cashback. In short, users of Waroze not only can find the least prices for the products but also get cashback to make the deal sweeter.
It’s simple to setup cashback at store level, but we had to put quite an effort to create framework for price aggregation along with integration for cashback, you can say its two product in one. Now since we have solid platform available, we are looking forward to scale it both horizontally & vertically.
Team Waroze
According to your opinion – cashback vs discount? Does your product take into consideration all the discounts that happen on e-commerce stores almost on a daily basis?
Discount applies at the time of purchase itself whereas in case of cashback, customer needs to pay full amount and gets a cashback in some time after purchase has happened. While comparing both, for the matter of fact, discount is more enticing for the customer because he gets the discount immediately.
The best thing with Waroze is, user can avail the discounts offered by the stores on daily basis. Plus, we offer the cashback on top of it. Thus, user can enjoy taste of both the worlds together at the same time.
What is the funding status of Waroze?
We are bootstrapped. Some part of funding has happened from few service projects which we undertook last year. Our short term plan is not to take outside funding as of now.
What are the upcoming features planned at Waroze?
Waroze already has the integration of price aggregation and Cashback. That is, user can compare the product’s prices across different stores along with the applicable Cashback.
Now, we are going to integrate the benefits offered by the stores such as Deals, Offers and Coupons with price aggregation and Cashback. That is, across stores, user will be able to compare product’s price, offers and Cashback. By using Cashback and these benefits together, users will be save even more on their shopping.
TTP’s take on Waroze
The concept is neat, and currently price aggregation works for mobiles & cameras. The good thing is, irrespective of price aggregation, cash backs are listed at store level and one can avail it by simply going via waroze.com. We would recommend they firm up the price aggregation and cashback feature first and concentrate on getting a solid user base, before integrating other features such as deals and coupons. Wishing waroze team all the best.
