iPrice Group specializes in three business lines that are highly in demand – price comparison for electronics and health & beauty; product discovery for fashion and home & living; and coupons across all verticals. While its e-commerce aggregation platform makes it easier for consumers to find the best prices, iPrice assists its partners with cost-effective and performance-based affiliate programs that help them broaden their marketing efforts. Through its platform, the group connects consumers with hundreds of e-commerce merchants through a great shopping experience.
Since its inception in October 2014, iPrice Group has successfully managed to establish itself as the fastest growing in its segment across seven markets – Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Hong Kong. It currently merchandizes over 50 million products to online shoppers across these nations. Now, in a move to further strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia, it has nabbed $4 million in Series A round of funding led by Asia Venture Group (AVG) and Venturra, with participation by Gobi Partners, DMP, Econa, Starstrike Ventures and personal CEO investment.
iPrice has expanded at an accelerated rate, with its traffic rising over 500% in the past 12 months, since its previous round of funding in December last year. David Chmelař, iPrice Group CEO, comments,
What is even more extraordinary is that we have been able to grow entirely organically and are approaching profitability even faster than originally planned.
E-commerce sector and iPrice’s vision
Chmelař says they have observed the first-hand need for a comprehensive platform where consumers can consistently find the best deals and product information. At the same time, they witnessed the demand for reliable and performance-driven marketing channels servicing merchants, which were also lacking in the region. He adds,
In the past 12 months, we have helped a multitude of our partners to grow their monthly traffic and GMV by an additional 50%.
As the e-commerce space continues to develop rapidly and becomes increasingly fragmented, customers find it more challenging to look for the best prices across the myriad of merchants. A study by iPrice reveals that only 2 out of 10 products in SEA can be purchased at the cheapest price from the largest e-commerce merchants, while consumers would have to visit dozens of different websites to ensure better deals.
With market leaders such as Google and Temasek predicting the Southeast Asian e-commerce space becoming a $200 billion industry by 2025, the demand for differentiated marketing channels will rise. More developed e-commerce markets such as the U.S. have shown the importance of affiliate marketing channels for the e-commerce economy. A study conducted by Forrester Consulting revealed that the majority of e-commerce merchants are devoting over 10% of their marketing budgets to affiliate programs.
In order to fully tap this opportunity, iPrice plans to open up its fully monetized product catalog, already the biggest of its kind in the region, to publishers and third-party websites with a customisable suite of tools, designed to drive their revenue potential. Tim Marbach, CEO and Founder of Asia Venture Group, says,
Given the combination of e-commerce hyper growth, the solidity of iPrice’s business model, and the unique execution skills that the team has demonstrated, iPrice will become one of the largest and most profitable company emerging from Southeast Asia’s e-commerce landscape.
New additions to the team
The Kuala Lumpur-headquartered company has recently appointed two members to its leadership team – Dr. Konstantin Lange, Co-founder of online grocer HappyFresh, as Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Matteo Sutto, Zalora alumnus and Founder of Tate & Tonic, as Senior Vice President of Growth. It stands strong with a staff of over one hundred people, with local teams representing each of the 7 countries where it operates.
Chmelař further explains that iPrice’s success in helping millions of users to find the most accurate product information is just the beginning of what iPrice envisions to become. He continues saying,
Our ambition is to become the primary gateway to online retail in Southeast Asia. The size and technology behind our product catalogue, together with our unmatched monetization capabilities, allow us to look at horizontal and vertical expansions to capture additional market opportunities.
David rightly concludes – much remains to be done to make online retail easier for consumers, and iPrice certainly seems to be paving this path.
