JustLikeNew ’s nomenclature speaks volumes of its business model – an e-commerce platform, it aims to revolutionize the electronics after-sales service and refurbished goods industry in India. XLRI Jamshedpur alumni Ajit Panigrahi and Rahul Agarwal began the portal in 2014 when Panigrahi ran from pillar to post to get his mobile screen repaired. “We launched operations ten months ago and have received tremendous response from our early adopters. For the first time ever in this category, we have productized over 5000+ repair services and are operational in Bangalore and Hyderabad,” says Panigrahi.
What JustLikeNew.in did was package a service as a product, by pre-defining all the service delivery elements like the price, timeline, features, service terms etc in the portal. This brought in service standards and transparency to the highly unorganized service, repair and refurbish industries in the country. Panigrahi adds, “What we’re doing is basically reducing the variability involved with availing a service. So a customer buys the service as if s/he is actually buying a product.” They process hundreds of orders a month currently, having tie-ups with official suppliers of gadgets and parts. And customers are thrilled. “Free pick up and drop, one day service, standby phone and all this for a nominal price,” says Milan Singhal, a customer from Bangalore.
And to facilitate this, they needed a fast and secure payment platform for customers to pay for their desired service. “We wanted a trusted payment processor, one that supports multiple banks. And of course, the TDR should be reasonable,” continued Panigrahi, “The nature of our business is such that customers prefer paying post repair, after inspecting the device. We were dealing with cash transactions that were becoming a nuisance, and emailing links through Instamojo helped us move to a hassle-free, transparent and secure payment solution.”
This enabled them to scale and JustLikeNew.in saw a phenomenal response in the last few months – a MOM growth rate of 70%-80%, more than double the prior rate. Of course, the fact that theirs is a unique portal in the industry helps, a majority of other players remain small and unorganized. That explains why Panigrahi is optimistic about its potential, “We service and repair devices, returning them the same day. Given that our average ticket size is in the range of Rs. 3000, customers are more comfortable doing an online transaction instead of cash settlement. Having a strong payment solution like Instamojo has given us the ease of scaling operations. We are expanding into several new cities in the coming few months.”
