CHENNAI: The concept of bartering was first adopted by Mesopotamian tribes in 6,000 BC. The barter system was also widely practised in Kerala in the 1500s after the arrival of Portuguese travelers. Today, N R Venkatesan, founder director, Barterkiya, has given a new twist to the bartering system by bringing it to the e-commerce platform.
The idea of starting a modern day bartering system struck him when his son wanted to buy a new smartphone. “My son wanted to exchange his smartphone on a shopping portal and he was disappointed with the bids people made,” says 50-year-old Venkatesan. He then decided to develop a platform where people can exchange unused goods for another product from another person.
Venkatesan along with N P Malolan, director, and K Rajaram, head of technology at Barterkiya, are hoping to tap the potential of unused goods households.
“As of 2014, there are `56,000 crore worth of unused goods in homes across India,” says Venkatesan. He is confident that his startup will offer a secure mode of transaction and will help cash conservation. “I got to know from a source that brokers were posting goods on classified ads websites and our platform will eliminate that.”
Barterkiya is currently self-funded and will be seeking venture capital funding in the future. Ask him about the revenue model and he says, “Vintage listings, paid listings and e-auction system will be our revenue model.”
The pan-India company, with its office in Chennai, is also aiming to expand to logistics and connect users to service vendors to repair their items before exchanging. “If a user has an unused damaged product, we would refer them to a reliable serviceman,” he says.
Though Barterkiya is a free-classifieds website, focusing only on bartering, Venkatesan says that users can connect through the chat system and even decide a certain price if the value of one exchanged product is lesser than the other. “Users can even restrict people if they are sending unwanted messages,” he points out.
The Barterkiya app is available on Google Play Store and Apple Store.
Matching Two Users for Exchange
Barterkiya uses complex logic to match two users who can exchange used item available with them. If direct matching is not found, system tries ‘Triangular matching’ – a unique feature being launched in online bartering world
Send Chat Messages or Call
Communicate with user who has the item you need through call or chat. Barterkiya has a feature of restricting the users from sending unwanted messages