When Bigbasket was founded in December 2011, it guaranteed to deliver goods within a one-hour delivery slot of its customers’ choosing or it would refund them 10 percent of their orders. The company also introduced an express service, delivering groceries within 90 minutes of an order being placed.

Bigbasket needed a mapping platform that could help it meet its delivery times, and offer a familiar interface to customers. MediaAgility, a digital consulting company, recommended Google Maps Platform to Bigbasket.

When customers use the Bigbasket mobile app to place orders, they select their locations on a Google Map. The prices and availability of groceries varies according to location, so a customer’s location determines the cost of the order and what can be ordered.

Google Maps Platform Results

• Bigbasket handles more than one million orders per month, and delivers in more than two dozen cities in India
• Bigbasket now has more than four million customers
• Orders are delivered on time, increasing customer loyalty

It is also used to determine driver routes. Bigbasket used the Maps Javascript API to build a web-based app for the company’s backend that tracks all orders and delivery progress. Dispatchers use the Directions API to match drivers with orders and customers, and the Distance Matrix API to get estimate the time of arrival for deliveries. As dispatchers track the progress of deliveries on the map, they can tweak routes as necessary.

“We’ve built Bigbasket from the ground up using Google Maps Platform. It makes sure we have the right customer locations and deliver to them on time. We couldn’t have started Bigbasket without Google Maps. It helps us to be fast and efficient, and make sure our customers get what they’ve ordered quickly,” said Pramod Jajoo, Chief Technology Officer, Bigbasket

Apigee is Google Cloud’s API management platform that enables organizations to build, operate, manage and monetize their APIs. Customers from industries around the world trust Apigee to build and scale their API programs.

While some organizations operate with mature API-first strategies, others might still be working on a modernization strategy. Even within an organization, different teams often end up with diverse use cases and choices for API management. From our conversations with customers, we are increasingly hearing the need to align our capabilities and pricing with such varied workloads.

We’re excited to introduce a Pay-as-you-go pricing model to enable customers to unlock Apigee’s API management capabilities whilst retaining the flexibility to manage their own costs. Starting today, customers will have the option to use Apigee by paying only for what they are using. This new pricing model is offered as a complement to the existing Subscription plans (or) the ability to evaluate it for free.

Start small, but powerful with Pay-as-you-go pricing

The new Pay-as-you-go pricing model offers flexibility for organizations to:

• Unlock the value of Apigee with no upfront commitment: Get up and running quickly without any upfront purchasing or commitment
• Maintain flexibility and control in costs: Adapt to ever-changing needs whilst maintaining low costs. You can continue to automatically scale with Pay-as-you-go or switch to Subscription tiers based on your usage
• Provide freedom to experiment: Every API management use case is different and with Pay-as-you-go you can experiment with new use cases by unlocking value provided by Apigee without a long term commitment

Pay-as-you-go pricing works just like the rest of your Google Cloud bills, allowing you to get started without any license commitment or upfront purchasing. As part of the Pay-as-you-go pricing model, you will only be charged based on your consumption of

• Apigee gateway nodes: You will be charged on your API traffic based on the number of Apigee gateway nodes (a unit of environment that processes API traffic) used per minute. Any nodes that you provision would be charged every minute and billed for a minimum of one minute.
• API analytics: You will be charged for the total number of API requests analyzed per month. API requests, whether they are successful or not, are processed by Apigee analytics. Analytics data is preserved for three months.
• Networking usage: You will be charged on the networking (such as IP address, network egress, forwarding rules etc.,) based on usage

When is Pay-as-you-go pricing right for me?

Apigee offers three different pricing models

• Evaluation plan to access Apigee’s capabilities at no cost for 60 days
• Subscription plans across Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise plus based on your predictable but high volume API needs
• Pay-as-you-go without any startup costs

Subscription plans are ideal for use cases with predictable workloads for a given time period, whereas Pay-as-you-go pricing is ideal if you are starting small with a high value workload. Here are a few use cases where organizations would choose Pay-as-you-go if they want to:

• Establish usage patterns before choosing a Subscription model
• Evolve their API program by starting with high value and low volume API use cases
• Manage and protect your applications build on Google cloud infrastructure
• Migrate or modernize your services gradually without disruption

Next steps

Every organization is increasingly relying on APIs to build new applications, adopt modern architectures or create new experiences. In such transformation journeys, Apigee’s Pay-as-you-go pricing will provide flexibility for organizations to start small and scale seamlessly with their API management needs.

• To get started with Apigee’s Pay-as-you-go pricing go to console or try it for free here

Check out our documentation and pricing calculator for further details on Apigee’s Pay-as-you-go pricing for API management. For comparison and other information, take a look at our pricing page.

We all experienced, first hand, how Covid-19 has impacted the world and our communities. Last year, store closures, reduced hours, and social-distancing requirements drove people to adopt more e-commerce options, which, according to eMarketer, grew 27.6% worldwide in 2020. Meanwhile, consumer desires to shop locally also grew with Google searches for “____ near me” up 100% year over year,¹ and 1 in 3 consumers having tried curbside pickup over the last year.²

As countries begin to lift Covid-19 restrictions, businesses are looking toward a post-pandemic future and asking ‘Which of these shopping trends will stick and how should I adapt?’ At Google, we expect consumers to continue demanding helpful shopping experiences that blur the line between the physical retail and digital experience, as well as help them to continue shopping locally.³ To address these changes in shopper behavior, we refreshed our retail solutions—adding a new solution, Product Locator, and updating Store Locator Plus—to help you offer the best possible online-to-offline experience and drive shoppers to your stores. 

Introducing Product Locator solution: connecting online shopping to nearby stores

Under Covid restrictions, consumers have grown accustomed to having a myriad of shopping options, from curbside pickup to same-day delivery. Increased searches for ‘along my route’ and ‘in stock’ tell us that convenience is king for today’s consumer.⁴ Retailers can increase online conversion rates and drive store visits by including product availability and pick-up options on each of their product description pages (PDP); emphasizing the speed and convenience of these options and saving on significant shipping costs. 

Our newest retail solution, Product Locator, can further help drive customers to visit by showing the exact distance stores are to the shopper and even estimated driving time, to further highlight the convenience of a store visit. A study conducted by Shopify found that showcasing local inventory boosted key store metrics including 45% of local pickup who made an additional purchase upon arrival.⁵ See the Product Locator solution guide to get started today.

Update your store locator page to address more of shoppers’ needs

Store locators allow shoppers to more easily find your stores and can be made even more helpful with our Store Locator Plus solution. Our updated Store Locator Plus solution refreshes the store locator page to be more informative and engaging by integrating offers redeemable in-store, online scheduling for appointments and services, and text me directions services. Implement Store Locator Plus today using the guide.

Build and customize Store Locator Plus for your business in minutes

At Google Maps Platform, we are always thinking of ways to make building a map easier and faster for our customers. In May at I/O we made Cloud-based Maps Styling generally available, enabling map updates to happen without touching a line of code. Today we’re excited to introduce Quick Builder, our free, low code builder which allows you to demo, customize and build a version of the Store Locator Plus solution for your website in minutes. Experience Quick Builder today.
To learn more about how you can start adopting these retail solutions, visit our retail solutions page.

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

^{1 Global Insights Briefing: Getting back out there}

^{2 https://www.shopify.com/pos/future-of-retail-2021}

^{3 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/digital-transformation/covid-trends-1-year/}

^{4 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/pandemic-shopping-behavior/}

^{5 https://www.shopify.com/pos/future-of-retail-2021}