Online listings for jobs, cars, B2B suppliers and local businesses, and marketplaces for home services (Naukri, CarWale, IndiaMART, Just Dial, Urban Company).
Connects buyers with sellers - recruiters with job seekers, car buyers with dealers, businesses with suppliers, households with service professionals - and charges the paying side subscriptions, listing fees or a commission. Urban Company goes further: it trains, equips and manages the professionals.
Classifieds are the most profitable corner of Indian internet: network effects make the No. 1 portal in each vertical very hard to displace, cash comes in upfront as subscriptions, and there is little inventory or delivery cost.
Mature leaders (Naukri, IndiaMART) earn 35-50%+ operating margins on subscriptions. Car classifieds earn from dealer subscriptions and auctions (CarTrade's Shriram Automall). Services marketplaces earn a 15-25% commission but carry training and quality costs, and are near breakeven.