This Is How Google Is Helping SMEs In India We, at Google, are focused on helping SMEs go online, and enabling online B2B marketplace to scale.

By Ritu Kochar

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Online business to business (B2B) marketplaces have emerged as a hub for SMEs to connect with their customers online.

Moving this a step further in this domain is Tolexo who has taken the lead to spur the growth of its online B2B commerce in India. And to achieve this, they have Google on their side.

An online marketplace for industrial goods and supplies, Tolexo was looking to ramp up acquisition across India and categories to cement its leadership in the space. Working closely with Google, they will now be able to drive its growth across India and categories on Google search.

Speaking about working together with Google, Brijesh Agrawal, Founder, Tolexo said, "At Tolexo, we are delighted that Google has partnered with us to spur the growth of the online B2B commerce space in India. It has made significant contributions towards our larger vision of enabling Indian SMEs to fulfill their business needs in the most seamless manner."

Acquiring right customer by keeping costs in check is key priority for most businesses. Google identified the challenges and worked on a solution to scale acquisitions built around Google search. Using a combination of Product listing ads and re-marketing techniques, Tolexo was able to boost its order growth by 3 times and also able to bring down the cost of new customer acquisition by 15% over the year.

According to Industry Reports, Online business to business (B2B) segment is expected to grow to 700-750 $ in India by 2020. Tolexo itself has 1 million products available on its website, which serves more than 2.5 lacs businesses.

Nitin Bawankule, Industry Director for Google India spoke about Tolexo's growth and said, "We saw great synergies in our goals with Tolexo. We, at Google, are focused on helping SMEs go online through our various programs, and enabling online B2B marketplace to scale, was a perfect way to help Indian SMEs realize the value and impact of doing business online."

We were able to gauge the B2B demand by looking at search queries in the B2B space for Industrial goods, and we realized that there was great demand with queries coming from all over India. By leveraging our advertising products like product listing ads and re-marketing, we were able to help Tolexo meets its goal, Nitin added.

Ritu Kochar

Former Staff, Entrepreneur India

Ritu used to work as a Feature writer for Entrepreneur India.
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