In Pakistan, shopping without bargaining isn’t really shopping – something that online stores unfortunately take away.
And while bargain hunting can be done on the internet (prices often vary on online stores), it requires users to visit different e-stores in order to find the best prices, which takes time and kills the whole point of convenient online shopping.
But with PriceOye.pk, developers have found a solution.
One-stop price comparison for cellphones
The e-store was launched in 2015. It does not sell cellphone on its own. The website, still in its beta version, is actually a service that allows users to compare cellphone prices from different Pakistani online stores. Once a user selects a handset, the website displays a list of e-stores where the product is available. By clicking on the tab of a particular store, the user is taken to that store's website where the order can be placed.
Smartphones are the largest online selling product in Pakistan, which is why PriceOye started with cellphones. The need to expand to other products in the future has also been mentioned, but for now, the website only deals with cellphones.
Credible and up to date
Apart from gathering prices from different online stores, PriceOye also makes sure that prices are always up to date and the offers are credible – two things that other online stores aren’t always able to ensure. It does so by implementing an automatic system that keeps a check on prices offered by legitimate online stores.
PriceOye also has user-friendly website, with a straightforward presentation of products. It has filters that help narrow down handsets based on price, screen size, processor, camera quality, storage, and operating systems. The website also shows a chart displaying weekly changes in prices of a cellphone.
Room for improvement
While general browsing is smooth, the website still needs to be more flexible.
For example, you can only search for the phones by brand and compare the prices between different stores. There is no option to compare different phones in the same price brackets. You can know how much a Samsung phone is available for, but you cannot know what kind of phones are available and where for, let’s say, RS35000-50000.
Absence of such crucial feature could be deal breaker for some. It’s more efficient to have all your results on one page instead of having to go through five or six pages. An improvement on this front would save users a lot of frustration. As for the mobile version of the website, it does not have all the features yet.
PriceOye is a welcome addition to the growing number of online stores in Pakistan. Small improvements to the the website’s platform will make it much better.
The author is a graphic designer and freelance writer with a focus on tech.
