To launch Search Plus by Sept, monetise by H2FY17:Just Dial

Just Dial’s Search Plus will be launched in September this year and monetisation from it should start by first half of FY17, says Ramkumar Krishnamachari, CFO, Just Dial.Search Plus business will enable customers to carry out transactions such as booking movie tickets, ordering flowers or making doctor appointments from its directory, as well as buy various products.Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Krishnamachari says Just Dial continues to stay most popular search player as there is no competition for local search since it has disrupted the yellow pages business.On pricing, he says the company would keep low prices in tier-II cities as Just Dial focuses on increasing volume of vendors and gain value out of them.On tier-I cities, he says there is no pricing pressure as 95-96 percent of the businesses don’t have website. “Unless business has website they can’t go to Google to advertise,” he says.From advertising point of view, Just Dial is the most efficient of all the alternate platforms available for a small business to get discovered, he says, adding, “the fact is that we have relationship with all these vendors and are competing with traditional advertising like print, hoardings, etc where it has been proven that the leads generated through Just Dial bring a superior rate of return”.