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Sunday 6 December 2015

Zerch App - Connecting offline Stores with online Consumers

Mahindra Comviva, a subsidiary of IT giant Tech Mahindra and one of the market leaders in mobile solutions has launched its latest mobile application called “Zerch”. This a deal/offer finding mobile application that works not only with big brands in any city but also with middle level local merchants in that city. It is the first Hyper Local offers/deals discovery mobile platform that is available currently in Bengaluru and NCR only and the company has plans to roll it out soon in other cities in phased manner.

Home page of Zerch App

About Zerch application:

Zerch app connects local merchants in any city with the consumers in that location. This app notifies users about nearest stores based on their location and also shows all the deals currently running in those stores. Merchants with “Zerch app for Merchants” update all the deals in in their app and the same deal information gets pushed onto consumers through Zerch app. So whenever users open Zerch app, they see all the nearby stores along with all the deals currently going on in those stores. 

Categorization of stores
It contains information in different categories based on store, like Food stores, electronic stores, Garment stores and many other categories. The app contains 2 types of offer, one is general offer running in those stores and second is Zerch Exclusive offer in which user can show the Zerch coupons to get additional discount in same store. There are various level of customization options available in app to satisfy needs of different type of users smoothly.

Normal Store deals 

Zerch exclusive deals
In simple terms Zerch connects offline stores in any city with nearby online consumers. It is beneficial for both the merchants and consumers. On one side consumers can easily get all the information of their nearby stores and go to right place without wasting much time in searching the suitable store, on other side Merchants can easily attract consumers just by pushing all the deals to them through Zerch app. Mahindra Comviva did a promotional activity in Bangalore in 15 stores and they found that number of consumers visiting those stores increased by 5-10% on daily basis. With the coming time Company is looking to make app more useful for both the users and merchants and also looking to take it to Micro level merchants and make them smart stores like big retails and brand stores.

During the meet with we bloggers on Thursday, Srinivas Nidugondi , Senior VP and head of Mobile Financial solution Mahindra Comviva said “Today Consumers are digitally empowered and expect to be served at any time and place. Zerch is created to cater this need of finding the best deals anywhere anytime to improve user’s in-house shopping experience.”

More information on Mahindra Comviva can be found at http://www.mahindracomviva.com/ and users can download this free app for android and IOS.  

Monday 30 November 2015

BBMP to Monetize Potholes in Bangalore

After Seeing different variety and sizes of potholes on Bangalore roads, potholes varying from 1x1 square feet to 4x4 square feet, potholes with zero shape to square shape to some even snake shape and being unable to maintain roads well,  BBMP (Bangalore municipal corporation) has come with a master pan of monetizing these potholes.

After getting hint about this story from sources, I contacted a senior BBMP officer and he agreed to share the secret master plan after assurance of his confidentiality. Here is the conversation with him.  

Sir, is it true that BBMP has made a master plan to make money from potholes?

See, we have given our 100% to maintain roads in Bengaluru City, we have worked day and night too, but due to excess rains and some environmental factors beneath the earth potholes keep popping up. We were feeling helpless but suddenly an officer proposed that why shouldn’t we make use of these potholes to generate revenue? He proposed that we should monetize potholes to increase our revenue so that we can serve this city even better.

So what is BBMP’s plan to monetize these potholes?

We are planning to auction these potholes as “Space for Ads”, brands can put small ad hoardings at those potholes. The price range will vary depending on the 1) Locality, 2) Traffic on that road and 3) Index of twitter outrage, more the outrage about a pothole and its locality more the ad price.

Do you think BBMP can do it on its own or it will be on PPP model?

Actually we are looking for startups that can take up this work. We are willing to share good part of profit with them and we have assured them that this contract will be for life time as potholes are never going to go off the roads.

What about the daily commuter who gets injured due to these potholes?

Well, we request them to be careful while driving, after all it’s their life. We have requested the RTO department to make driving test tougher and include “Pothole-friendly driving” test before giving driving license. Also we will make sure that we put light reflective ad hoardings to help commuter in night time.



Disclaimer : This story is totally baseless and has no relation with any living human or creature or pothole. As our politicians do always say after any wrong thing happens “I CONDEMN THIS” :)