Ashwin wanted to buy a smartphone, and he thought of buying a used but good conditioned smartphone at a reasonable price. He had heard about a website called Olx.in, which connected buyer and seller. He logged on to the site and viewed the listings of his requirement. He found out a google nexus 5 at a low price which was hardly used and that too at a reasonable price. He immediately called up the seller for making an offer. They agreed to meet at a particular place. He got there along with his two other friends, who agreed to go with him for accompanying him.
They met the seller, he seemed like a nice guy. The fellow was very convincing and very good in talking and he lured the guys to buy the phone. The guys agreed and they asked for all the other accessories, the box, the bill, the IMEI number etc. The seller agreed to everything but the bill. He told them that the bill was misplaced as of now, and he would get it to them in a while. The guys went out with a new-like Google Nexus 5 with the bill, box and accessories.
The guys were happy that they got such kind of phone at such a low price, his friends were appreciating the deal, but Ashwin was still suspicious about the phone, so he googled down the VAT tin number just to check the validity of bill. The VAT tin number showed an address of an old liquor shop, his suspicion grown stronger.
They got down to the address of the bill. A mobile phone store was there, but with a different name. They showed the bill to the shop owner, to which the owner counter-showed a similar kind of bill, admitting that another fellow was also conned just like that with a stolen phone.
The guys were so furious about this, they thought of filing a case, but they did not wanted to get down in all the fuss of court proceedings.
They learnt an important lesson from their first experience of buying a used smartphone. They thought that, many other people would have also been fooled while buying a used smart phone, so they came up with a strategy to protect the interest of buyers as well as sellers.
They thought of an idea. "Gadzet.in", a platform which facilitates the ease in buying and selling of used smartphones.
Gadzet.in, a company started in April, 2015 by IIM and IIT graduates Ashwin, Sriram and Parteek.
The company started up with an aim to organize the sector of used smartphones, which no other C2C company (example - olx, quickr etc) were offering. They started up with a small amount of savings contributed by the three of them.
The 3 guys spent the money to buy used smartphones with good condition after checking the validity of IMEI and VAT-tin number, the originality of accessories and all the necessary requirements. With a hope of selling it to the needful people and getting a cut in between for maintaining the working capital. As they explored, they got to know more possibilities and opportunities in sector.