GirnarSoft's CarDekho, an online marketplace to buy and sell used cars, was founded in 2008 by Amit Jain. The platform allows users and car experts to leave reviews, specifications, instructions, useful tips, and images of cars that are being sold in the Indian market. It has more than 3000 certified listings of used cars on the website. In the latest round of series E funding in October 2021, the company raised $200 million, taking the brand valuation to $1.2 billion and making it a unicorn. CarDekho has made excellent use of technology to drive the sector - influencing customer behavior with regards to which cars to buy and where to buy them from. Analyzing data has helped dealerships market the cars better, target the correct audience, and boost their revenues. But the primary benefit that CarDekho has gained by leveraging AI, ML, and other new-age technology is an enhanced customer experience.  

Leveraging Big Data 

The customized content and product tools help in making smart recommendations to users. The algorithm takes into account all parameters that a user would look at while buying a car. These sorts and filters have allowed users to get the correct information right from technical aspects to aesthetics to ease of maintenance, thereby aiding a quick purchase. "We use predictive analytics to analyze data from customers’ online browsing behavior and personalize their user journey and offers, thus making their car buying productive and optimized.", says Umang Kumar, President, CarDekho.  

Empowering the Customer 

Transparency and availability of data has always been able to win over customers. Customers look for correct information and a user-friendly process; when the two are brought together, revenues always tend to rise. The CarDekho marketplace allows users to compare various car models based on whatever parameters they choose - price, mileage, technical features, servicing requirements, etc. Users can read official media reviews and reviews from various car experts. The AI studies customer behavior by analyzing the data that gets captured in the Dealer Management System and helps strategise product positioning and marketing communication. Tools like chatbots and virtual assistants help dealers address hundreds of queries in the day. Through new-age technology, whatever the customer wants to know about buying a car, all their doubts and queries, are addressed viably and transparently. 

Connecto 

CarDekho bought a SaaS named Connecto, a machine independent tool that helps product managers communicate efficiently with the target audience. It offers a user profile creator that creates profiles by tracking user behavior in real time. Along with this, other features include a notification engine and custom integrations, among others. “Being a tech-intensive company, we are always on the look-out for more hi-tech startups to augment our tech expertise. Connecto will help us create user profiles by tracking user behaviour in real time. These user segments can then be interacted with in a personalised manner via web notifications, specific emails, in-app notifications and chrome notifications,” said Amit Jain, CEO, GirnarSoft. 

Intelligent Pricing  

The correct pricing for any product is always vital. If the pricing is wrong or constantly fluctuating, customers tend to explore other avenues. So, while setting the prices, CarDekho used an algorithm to create a selection of cars that are most sought-after by the customers. This AI has an auto-pricing system that ascertains the best rate for the cars as well as the ideal procurement rate for the sellers. Vivek Srivastava, Chief Product and Technology Officer, CarDekho says, "With the help of AI, there's standardization and consistency in pricing. Normally, while selling or dealing, there can be a chance of the fluctuation of prices with a new day. But through AI and ML models, it is consistent which brings in trust, transparency and also elevates the customer experience, which we strive to provide to our customers." 

Smart Inventory 

The brand uses an AI that analyzes data procured from millions of data points to understand buyer behavior and ongoing trends. Smart recommendations are then made to users that often lead to a purchase. This AI and ML predictive analysis also helps in inventory management. Inventory across sites is managed and only the correct number of cars are stored based on location and necessity. This AI adoption helped the company bring down their maintenance cost. "We have increased our efficiency on the cost by 50 percent because of usage of AI, pricing procurement as well as management. All of this did not happen overnight, it took us time to get these results.”, says Srivastava.  

For the past couple of years, the company has been taking strides in the right direction with the use of AI and ML. They've even gone international with Oto.com in Indonesia. CarDekho's future plans include providing a 360-degree image of the car on the platform, an AI automobile inspection procedure, and ML that will detect defects in the car. All this will lead to even higher quality standards and an enhanced customer experience.