Pune-based Shoppingwish rebrands as Scandid, focuses on mobile first approach

Wednesday January 15, 2014 , 3 min Read

Launched in June 2012, Pune-based price comparison platform Shoppingwish has rebranded itself as Scandid. The Scandid app was demoed as one of the finalists in MobileSparks 2013. Scandid is a barcode scanner based shopping app which helps you find the best deals on products both online and offline.The startup had launched Scandid app (Android only) in September last year with the aim of providing an omni-channel shopping companion which helps users simplify their shopping decisions across both channels (online and offline). “Couple of months after the launch, we figured that completely focusing on mobile first shopping experiences is the only way to create something novel and different,” says Madhur Khandelwal, co-founder, Scandid.

Besides Android, Scandid is available on iOS and over the web as well. “After we launched Shoppingwish we regularly analysed feedback from users and observed that more people were accessing our platform using their mobile devices,” adds Madhur. Soon, the company realized that shopping is not an online only activity and went on to rebrand as Scandid. At present, it caters to eight categories including mobile phones, books, cameras and others.

Pivoting to mobile first requires an altogether different strategy, feature sets and user experience. “We put in a lot of effort to get the technology and data in place for the unique barcode scanning feature. Similar effort was required for providing nearby shop listings,” he adds. Madhur reveals that focus on mobile requires completely new ways of thinking about user experience and the team is still improvising the design aspects.

The startup pivoted by keeping a long term perspective. It aims to bridge the gap between online and offline channels and provide an integrated experience. “Users’ don’t want to use different apps for shopping be it online and offline. We have a strategy in place to create omni-channel experience on mobile, and that's why we are bullish on mobile-focused strategy,” says Madhur.

Founded by Madhur Khandelwal and Sushil Choudhari, Scandid racked up 10,000 downloads of the app across Android and iOS without spending any money on paid marketing. This is all through word of mouth and presentations that it had executed at various events, including MobileSparks.

The startup had raised an undisclosed amount of seed round funding last year from prominent angels in Silicon Valley and New York. In future, Scandid is looking to roll out more features to help users with many other shopping decisions, such as how to discover the best deals, seek advice from friends while shopping and more such interesting shopping scenarios. “At the end of the day, as a startup you can do well only if you focus on one area. That's why we are focusing all our energies on mobile shopping scenarios,” adds Madhur.

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