Do you need cargo delivery, but don't have a truck? Or do you have a truck but experience difficulties with its loading? The website www.m3.ink (M3) has been designed to solve these issues, and it is free of charge for both customers and carriers. In addition, the site offers an opportunity to share experience of working with companies, as well as to make sure of the reliability of a potential partner, find out his strengths and weak sides from other reviews. Anatoly Pavlovsky, the site creator and the founder of Cllick Solution, Inc., the company that promotes the site, talks about the M3 project development.
Anatoly Anatolyevich, what opportunities does M3 provide for users? How can it help them?
For cargo owners and carriers, we offer a platform with cargo and transport offers. The service helps connect transportation customers and contractors and optimizes their work.
There is also a reviews section, which serves to obtain more comprehensive information about business entities. Companies use M3 to confirm their ratings by exchanging reviews on the site with those they collaborate with.
What's a priority: searching for cargo and transport or company reviews?
I would say that on M3 we prioritize both equally. Both sections have their audience, and each of them is equally important to us. Reviews can concern almost any company. On the other hand, searching for a truck for transporting goods may be of interest to both organizations and individuals.
The M3 project doesn't stand still, it is developing. What changes, in your opinion, are significant both for the project and for the site users?
Being in constant contact with many Belarusian carriers, we value their opinion about our product, we strive to satisfy their wishes and increase the possibilities of the site. In particular, one of the wishes was that the service become international – focused not only on Belarus, but also on foreign countries, primarily our neighbours.
The first thing that had to be done in connection with entering the international market was a new domain and a new logo. Since the M3 website had already been familiar to many Belarusian partners, it was necessary to maintain the logo recognition, while bringing it into line with international standards. As for the domain, we considered different options, including m3.co and m3.net. As a result, we've chosen the option that seemed more suitable for us, m3.ink.
The main page www.m3.ink requires entering an invitation. What is it and what is it made for?
An invitation is a string consisting of characters, for example "bel". This is very similar to a regular promo code associated with a discount. So that we can understand which partner the user came to the site from, as each partner has its own version of the invitation to be entered by users on www.m3.ink. For example, the invitation "bel" can be entered in two ways: either by opening the www.m3.ink page and typing "bel" in the invitation field, or simply going to the page www.m3.ink/bel, the name of which already contains an invitation.
To make the logo of the site help to enter M3, it was decided to indicate the invitation as an additional element on it. On the main page, when the invitation hasn't yet been entered, an input field is placed along with the logo. After logging in by invitation, we redirect the user to a domain with the .by extension.
Do you use multiple domains?
The domain www.m3.ink has been created for the entrance. The rest of the functionality is located on the domain with the .by extension and its aliases, where each partner has a referral link in the form of a folder containing the rest of the site. The main page of the domain with the .by extension leads to the referral folder of the common partner, so that everything is indexed correctly by search engines. As I have already said, a separate domain www.m3.ink with a mandatory invitation gives us an understanding of where offline advertising users come from.
Does the functionality of adding cargo and transport have any special features?
I would say that the functionality is familiar to the users of such sites. When developing a cargo and transport search service, we studied the capabilities of many sites and made our product as clear and simple as possible for those who have used transport and cargo search platforms at least once.
How much is this type of service in demand, since cargo owners can work with familiar carriers?
The M3 website helps cargo owners quickly notify carriers, including those they have already worked with, about their cargoes. The advantage of a single platform with many carriers is that it's possible not only to learn about the offers of the companies that are already familiar, but also to get to know and start working with new carriers in case their offers seem attractive. Thus, the service provides the carriers with an opportunity to advertise themselves and available delivery offers; and for companies it offers an option to not only work with the carriers they know, but to find new carriers as well.
You've mentioned user partners. What benefits do they get?
M3 functionality is designed to support a marketing strategy. It takes into account various events, for example, through which partner the user has registered and resumed activity, and the ads of which partner he had viewed before registering. This gives us the opportunity to determine rating indicators: for example, how many active users a partner has. Depending on the rating of the user partner, we provide him with certain benefits.
It is planned that partners will receive priority in viewing ads. We are going to give top-rated user partners the opportunity to purchase shares and become full participants with a share in the project.
These are plans that you're talking about. But what can an M3 user partner get today?
We are already providing our partners with access to additional functionality. For example, prioritizing their cargo offers and viewing positive reviews without replies.
It turns out that viewing positive reviews without replies is limited, isn't it? Why?
The reviews were finalized so that they had the character of mutual exchange of recommendations. Previous analysis has showed that many people often do not remember those companies that left positive reviews. This means there is little trust in such reviews if recipients themselves do not understand who they come from. In our opinion, reviews are like recommendations: should you receive them, you know from whom. Besides, rating depends on how company representatives give feedback. The more reviews they leave, the better their rating is.
Does it mean that giving feedback is a simple way for a company to raise its rating on M3?
Exactly. Companies leave reviews for their counterparties and receive positive replies. Their rating will grow, because we take reviews as a list of those who can recommend the company. At the same time, we make sure that a high rating is not created fraudulently: attempts to leave a fake positive review will result in its removal.
Do users trust the reviews?
According to our information, negative reviews are more trusted. Sometimes we have to deal with negative reviews, sometimes users thank us for the fact that M3's involvement has helped to resolve the situation. If the review is due to a delay in payment, once the debt is closed we don't leave it in negative status, but transfer it to the "settled" one. Sure, this creates additional administrative work, but everyone understands that the payment has been made in full and the customer is solvent.
Some sites themselves carry out checks of the carriers' and customers' good faith. How's that been going on M3?
Reviews serve such a check. We propose to use a certain procedure for checking the carrier, who is entrusted with valuable cargo. As soon as reviews are available on M3, it is possible to call a review author and check carrier's contacts so as not to give the cargo to scammers.
As for the inspections carried by other sites, will the sites' owners pay compensation in case a "verified" carrier loses the cargo? It's unlikely. The reality is that there are certain risks that need to be minimized. If the cargo is valuable, the owner needs to clearly understand who it is given to. Therefore, ratings and reviews are very important points in cargo transportation. Of course, the cost of transportation also matters, but this criterion is less important than the safety of the cargo and the timeliness of its delivery. Reviews can clarify a number of questions about a company even before one start working with it. For example, if a truck is delivered for loading on time.
Why is M3 free for carriers, unlike many paid platforms?
The decision to make the site free of charge was made in order not to limit the number of users of the service and its relevance. For now, we would not reveal the plans on how we are going to monetize the service. We are looking for the options to optimize the costs of hosting server equipment, and are working on other technical issues so that the M3 service remains free for carriers. And I will definitely point out that it will remain so in the future.
What are your plans for the development of the M3 project for the year?
We will improve the functionality. We will try to make M3 more convenient for our users, the number of which, according to Yandex Metrics, has increased over the past year from 30 to 50+ thousand per month.
Subscribe to news
