Bikroy’s Path To Revenue

Bikroy is one of the methodical and fast-growing startups in Dhaka’s sluggish ecommerce industry. The leader in the classified marketplace space is a master of execution and has quietly transformed its mostly free platform into a paid, money-generating one over the past one and half years without losing much. Today, the company attracts millions of traffic and now hosts over 125k ads.

Initially, Bikroy was quite aggressive in marketing. It spent without restraint during its early days only to slowly curb and channel those marketing budgets towards the more revenue-generating direction.

To accelerate its revenue-generating effort, the company has introduced a myriad of products and services. From a purely C2C marketplace, it has gradually turned itself into an effective platform for small B2B players.

Today, a significant percentage of its revenue comes from these B2B users who pay a monthly membership fee to the company. From both technology and strategic points of view, there are tons of lessons to learn from Bikroy on how to gradually grow vertical after vertical and make money as you go.

• Bikroy makes money in a couple of ways. One is banner ads on its platform. Since it attracts over two million traffic a month with people who visit Bikroy with an intent to buy, the company is working hard to monetize its traffics. It currently serves a couple of banner ads and is doubling down on selling more.
• The largest online marketplace in Bangladesh. Although it specializes in C2C but it has a large and growing B2B component. About 25% of goods traded on Bikroy are new and are sold by B2B members, mostly smaller brick and mortar retailers.
• Currently, Bikroy focuses on four verticals: the general vertical, which means everything from mobile phones to clothes to other personal items. Cars & vehicles, property and jobs. General by far is the largest vertical. The vast majority of traffic and content comes from there, followed by cars & vehicles and then jobs and property.
• For a long time, Bikroy was free for everyone, and individual users could post unlimited ads at no cost. But those days are gone. They have put a limit on the number of free ads you can post keeping in mind that private users don’t need to post multiple ads at a time.
• For jobs, and services, you have to pay listing fees. The company has reached a dominant position where it can easily charge a listing fee.
• Bikroy has an active corporate sales team that brings in banner ads and a category management team that deals with generating revenue from retailers and our other small business partners.
• The company launched its Membership model in 2016. A small business now can have their own shop on Bikroy along with their own URL. When anyone goes to a particular shop URL they see only products posted by that Member. The advantage they get is simple, vast marketing power of Bikroy and a growing user-base with a buying mindset.
• The company has been growing its membership base over the past years who pay a monthly fee which varies depending on the category.
• Bikroy offers two levels of memberships: Business Plus and Business Premium. For each level, the pricing is different. It also has location specific pricing, for instance, in Dhaka, members pay more than in other cities.
• Bikroy has now over three thousand paying members which is the biggest source of revenue for marketplace.
• In order to monetize every transaction that happens on Bikroy platform, the company recently added a “Buy Now” feature – a one-click buying option. With “Buy Now,” it handles everything from taking the order and then contacting seller, picking up the product from the sellers and then delivering it to the buyer and then collecting the cash and returning it to the seller. For the entire process, it charges a commission from the seller, and it has a logistics partner for handling deliveries.