NearBiz

NearBiz helps you find a business near you in South Africa and get hold of them quickly. Pick a trade, tell us where you are — your GPS position or a suburb name — and NearBiz shows up to five nearby businesses with the real distance from where you searched. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Search plumbers, electricians, air conditioning, handymen, mechanics, tyre fitment, hair salons, dentists, restaurants, accountants and photographers. • See how far each business is, measured point to point rather than by suburb name. • Open a listing for the address, phone number, website, opening hours, rating and reviews. • Tap to call straight from the app. • Ask several businesses for a quote at once — describe the job once, choose how much of your address to share, and they contact you directly. • Report a review that shouldn't be there. HOW THE RESULTS ARE ORDERED Worth knowing before you use it. NearBiz first finds every business in that trade whose own service area covers the place you searched. Up to five of them are shown. Businesses holding listing credits are placed first, and whatever places are left are filled by the closest businesses without credits. There is a limit on that. A business with credits only holds its place ahead of a closer one while it is within roughly twice the distance of the nearest match, and that allowance is never tighter than 2 km. Beyond it, the credited business drops back to its plain distance position. So a paying listing can move ahead of a slightly closer business, but not ahead of one that is much closer. One more thing about the order: a business pinned to an exact address is placed ahead of one located only to a town, so a rough town-centre pin cannot pass itself off as the closest thing to you. Appearing costs a business nothing. Credits are what they spend when you actually contact them. WHAT IT COSTS YOU Nothing. Searching, opening listings, calling and requesting quotes are all free. There is no advertising in the app and nothing to buy. ACCOUNTS You can search and browse without an account. A free account is needed to request quotes, so the businesses have somewhere to reply, and to report a review. ABOUT THE LISTINGS Most listings were built from public South African business and trade registry records and have not been claimed by their owner yet. Those pages show what the record actually holds and nothing more — we do not write descriptions on a business's behalf. A tick means the owner has claimed and confirmed the listing. Some records are located only to a town, so you will see "nearby" instead of a distance. Coverage is thinner in some areas than others. If nothing comes up where you are, try a larger centre close by. FOR BUSINESSES Sign in to see your listing credit balance, how many leads you received, how many nearby searches you missed, how often you were shown, and your recent credit transactions. Buying credits and editing your listing are done on nearbiz.co.za. Questions: info@nearbiz.co.za