When there are too many players, competition is harsh. In order to compete, one must continue to improvise, or at least introduce new things.
OLX is a global online marketplace where users can buy and sell services and goods such as electronics, fashion items, furniture, household goods, cars and bikes. In the e-commerce industry, OLX is one of the older companies in the business, and here, it is tweaking some things.
First of all, OLX has redesigned its services to showcase simplicity, social and safer user interface.
The aim of the change is to help the company penetrate deeper into the market across online classifieds across regions, age-groups and categories.
According to OLX, the redesigned leverages 'innovative technology' and 'deep consumer understanding'.
Second, the redesigned app is making it mandatory for sellers and buyers to first register themselves online before using the platform for transaction.
Here, they can register using social channels or a phone number. Because social media networks allow others to see mutual friends, this approach can make buyers feel safer. Mandatory sign ins also implies that there are no more anonymous users on OLX.
This should also appeal women in particular.
Also on the security sector, the default settings of the redesigned OLX app don't reveal the phone number of the seller. Instead, OLX urges sellers to contact buyers through its OLX Chat feature, that at least until the two decide to reveal their phone number.
There is also a feature for voice chat.
Third, the redesigned OLX app has reduced the ad posting time by more than 50% by introducing the image recognition technology. This is because ads can generate auto-title and auto-category for the item being posted.
"All one needs to do is to take a photograph of the item, state the price, and it’s good to go. This change makes the posting process super simple and will be extremely beneficial for the new-to-net population," said OLX in a statement.
OLX has also added the hyper local experience to allow users to find great products in their vicinity.
"This particularly helps facilitate transactions for low-value items in the under-penetrated categories for which it does not make sense to travel large distance," the company added.
According to Agung Iskandar, the Director of Growth and Partnership of OLX Indonesia, the redesigned OLX introduces innovative technology to help users find products and services of any kind.
OLX has presence in more than 40 countries. In Indonesia, the company took over Tokobagus.com as a whole in 2014, before renaming it to OLX.co.id.