People in general when choosing goods or services, almost always try to filter by relying on several factors in order to make a choice that feels right to them, either in terms of effectiveness or fruitfulness. Consumers do not immediately choose the first business whose service they need, but rather they try to filter to a certain degree, through many such offers and then make the final and the most optimal choice. For instance, when having a toothache we look for a good dentistry, for our kids - high-quality kindergartens and schools, when having car issues - reliable auto repair, for family dinner - restaurants with delicious meals, when having health problems - high-quality medical centers, for home related inquiries - good furniture per order, carpet cleaning and dry cleaning services, etc.
.. Based on our day to day interactions, one can say that people turn to their close friends and acquaintances for recommendations as a more reliable source.
By only relying on friends’ recommendations, we risk missing good and optimal choices as the circle and the scope of our acquaintances are limited. For this very reason, the crowd-sourced reviews platform “Mino.tj” was built to provide users with the ability to rate and leave a review for a business, and read other users’ reviews.
“It is of great pleasure and honor to note that since being appointed as the mayor of the city of Dushanbe, his excellency Rustami Emomali, the city's pace and the rate of comprehensive growth has witnessed a drastic change for the past seven years. The dynamic development with a constantly growing number of new businesses opening regularly, attracts plenty of offers of goods and services across every spectrum of the local economy. Considering the following trend, by providing consumers with the ability to rate and review offered services, we positioned “Mino.
tj” as a tool to keep afloat the market competitiveness and make the business owners feel the high degree of responsibility and accountability in providing services that meet or exceed the expectations of its customers” - shares Komron. On the platform, one can find businesses providing local services. All the economic specters and local service names are enumerated in the form of categories and tags, which are designed to assist in making quick and accurate search requests.
Users can either type their request in the site’s internal searching system and perform the search, or navigate through ready-to-click button texts. Along with displaying the search result on the list, it will be displayed on an interactive map as well. Besides, one can filter by amenities provided by the businesses.
For instance, users may find kindergartens that provide transportation services, restaurants with terraces, shops that offer payment by installments, laboratories that offer home visits by nurse, etc...
Additionally, the platform provides the ability to filter by reference points. From the ready-to-select list, one can select a reference point and apply it to the search result page. For instance, if you are looking for a confectionery in the 82nd microdistrict, then in the resulting search page of all confectioneries in the city, you may use the filter to view only confectioneries in the 82nd microdistrict as a reference point.
On the personal pages of businesses, you may find contacts, working hours, amenities, user uploaded photos and written reviews, address along with business location pinned on an interactive map, which will assist in planning route and starting navigation. For business owners, the platform offers various functionalities for managing their personal business page. They can easily add their business through a very convenient and user-friendly interface, or submit a claim for an already existing page of their business, which is not yet verified.
After getting approved by moderators, owner will have an access to a fully functional business account interface through which he can respond to user reviews, edit basic information such as address, contact number, working hours, view the analytics of visits and clicks on his page, add photo, send direct message, give access to a manager or an employee. Additionally, restaurants can add their menu, shops - their products, service sector - list of their offered services with prices. All the added information by the owner will be displayed to users in a very beautiful and user-friendly interface on their “Mino.
tj” page. More information can be found by visiting ‘business.mino.
tj’. “With the support of the initiatives of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan on the development of the tourism industry and the rapid digitalization of various sectors of the economy, which provided a legal basis for the use of informational technologies, we have been dynamically developing the platform so that it could meet the specific characteristics of the demands of the local market. To give you a couple of examples.
Taking into account the needs of our dear foreign guests, the platform serves users in three different languages: Tajik, Russian and English. Besides, the official names of all government facilities are added to the platform with their respective translations in the above mentioned languages, and thus one can search and locate information about needed government facilities with any of their name translations. As another example, with the goal of strengthening and improving the tourism infrastructure, for tourists to have a convenient navigation inside the city after their arrival, our platform as well includes all the locations of tourist importance such as national cuisines, shops of traditional crafts, cultural and historical attractions, etc.
For cash withdrawals, many of our dear tourists make use of international bank cards like Visa, MasterCard, UnionPay, but not every ATM across the city accepts, for instance MasterCard. Considering this situation, we have provided the ability to filter ATMs by the type of cards that they accept. Tourists can easily search all the existing ATMs, apply the needed type of bank card as a filter and locate all the ATMs that accept, for our case, MasterCard” - emphasizes Komron.
“First and foremost, we are really glad and grateful with what we have achieved so far with “Mino.tj” in terms of growth. From the very first days of development, we had been fully focused on consumers and the specific needs of the local market.
We were not aiming in bringing an innovative new product and adapting the market accordingly with it, but rather we directed all our energy and focus towards analyzing the characteristics of the local market, and the needs and behavior of its consumers, and to meet these demands with a more innovative approach. For example, on “Mino.tj” users can find homemade bakery services with delivery, filter the gyms with the ones that have separate hall for women, find locations where one can have oshi nahor, or by following latest market trends, locate all the charging stations for electric vehicles across the city on the map.
The word ‘Mino’ in its noun form has two meanings: ‘glass’ and ‘lighthouse’, and their respective adjective characters infer ‘transparency’ and ‘guide’. We truly believe and hope that our platform will serve as a bedrock for bringing higher quality of goods and services in the market by inducing transparency in the process of offering them, like a glass, and a guide for consumers in making an informed and right decision when looking for reliable local services, like a lighthouse. The ever-growing number of our users on a regular basis, gives us hope that we are on the right track.
We, the young generation of an independent state, are deeply grateful for the opportunities that exist today in our country”, - says Komron. The Taliban announced the elimination of ISIS and the eradication of drug production The e-commerce Program for 2025-2029 was presented in Dushanbe Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have considered the possibility of supplying electricity to the Rogun HPP The Ministry of Labor of Tajikistan has found a job for more than 4 thousand unemployed "Men are not allowed." The UAE has stopped issuing visas to Tajik citizens In Khatlon, more than 30 young teachers received land plots Freedom Finance Global Review: Who is who in the Central Asian Securities Market The International Tourism Exhibition "Dushanbe-2024" will be held at the end of September Fighting warlocks: The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan will now punish their clients as well The second phase of the “Istiqlol” tunnel construction in Tajikistan will be completed by the end of September The Taliban announced the elimination of ISIS and the eradication of drug production The e-commerce Program for 2025-2029 was presented in Dushanbe Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have considered the possibility of supplying electricity to the Rogun HPP The Ministry of Labor of Tajikistan has found a job for more than 4 thousand unemployed "Men are not allowed.
" The UAE has stopped issuing visas to Tajik citizens In Khatlon, more than 30 young teachers received land plots Freedom Finance Global Review: Who is who in the Central Asian Securities Market.
