Search Plus is a key growth driver for Just Dial which has started off with four verticals (1) Ordering – food, groceries and wine; (2) Scheduling – such as arranging doctors’ appointments and courier pick-ups; (3) Ticketing – bus, trains and movies; and (4) Buying – ecommerce, beginning with branded goods. Just Dial faces competition in Search Plus, online commerce accounts for a low percentage of the business, as 99% of commerce is still offline. JustDial may not see a dominant share in Search Plus across categories.
The company plans to allow both paid and non-paid campaigns to participate in Search Plus and generate additional revenue. The ability to bundle local search and Search Plus will be critical, in our view.
The Following Chart Shows the Break Down of & Services Offered by Just Dial Local Search Engine along with Competitors in the Verticals [Click to Enlarge]
Just Dial faces stiff competition from niche players in the vertical. For example in the Online Doctors’ Appointment Scheduling, practo.com, doctorsbooking.com, bookmydoctor.in, etc are established players. Most of these players work on a revenue model of premium listings, for which a healthcare provider / Doctor pays a certain amount to be listed at the top of the portal. Common services offered by the online players include unlimited online appointments per day, email notifications, SMS notifications, and an appointment management system. Besides these, players may offer services such as featured doctor listing, clinic / hospital page and multi profiles available to doctors. Its FREE for consumers to use and in addition, doctors have the option to charge their fees online – but that comes with a transaction charge.
Key differentiator in this service will be having online medical practice management software that provides doctors with appointment schedulers and electronic medical record services, and prescriptions, along with billing, IVR telephony, and other healthcare management services.
In the online Grocery Ordering Vertical, key players include bigbasket.com, localbaniya.com, naturebasket.com and a few more. Most of the players in this category started with a just-in-time model and assembled individual orders from different shops. Few of them overtime have now moved to a warehouse stocking model and buying inventory in advance. Most of them have their own end-to-end logistics for procurement to warehousing to final delivery, with their own warehouses in key cities. Home delivery is free for end consumers, generally, for orders above INR1,000 in most cases.
Just Dial Vs Competition in Grocery
Just Dial will be able to connect users with various groceries / kirana stores but, unlike some of the existing players, unlikely to have very little control over quality and service delivery as that will be controlled by the local grocery stores. In addition to this, vertically integrated players are relatively better placed to market their services because of their ability to offer discounts, exotic products and loyalty programmes. That said, most online players focusing on grocery will need to make sizeable investments in their supply chain, which is not applicable for Just Dial. Given the above factors, scale will be critical in this category and as such over time, given the cash burn involved, the space may see some consolidation. Similarly, Just Dial may also EXIT some of the Search Plus services at a later stage.