Online spending may increase for businesses: report

Web classifieds are cheaper and have better ROI

Businesses are increasingly turning to the web to recruit candidates, place advertisements for restaurants and realty, and aid their marketing efforts.

Online avenues are cheap and offer good return on investment, according to a report from the Indian arm of global financial services firm Jefferies.

“For most large companies online is not more than 10% of their marketing spend and is likely to increase. Even for smaller businesses, we found a willingness to spend more online due to high ROI(Return on Investment). From business perspective it is mostly not a case of either-or; many are already using multiple sites and are willing to spend more on same or new sites as long as they generate good returns,” said the report authored by Equity Analyst Arya Sen.

People use Naukri, Monster and LinkedIn for hiring; 99acres, Magicbricks, Commonfloor and Housing.com for real estate classifieds and Zomato, Justdial and Food Panda for restaurants.

The price for using such services is also open to negotiation, according to the report.

“We found prices of subscriptions varying quite significantly amongst customers indicating negotiation is key to pricing and significant discounts are often given to attract new customers. Also most customers did not report much price escalation over last year in the established sites,” it said.

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