Search & Reference_ Blinking Dots

8/7/2019 Search & Reference_ Blinking Dots

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/search-reference-blinking-dots 1/25

1

A

Report on

Search & References

E Commerce

Under the guidance of

Prof. Prithwis Mukerjee

Submitted By-

Abhinav Kanaujia (09BM8081)

Yash Vardhan Aggarwal (09BM8063)



2

Content

1. Search Engine………………………….………….………………….…3

a. Web Crawler…………..……………………………..………………………3

b. Revenue Model...…………………………………………………………….6

2. Search in sub category: Video, Audio & Music………………………...7

a. Video/Audio/Music sites…………………………………………………….7

b. Revenue Model………………………………………………………………8

3. Search in sub category: Real State…………………………………….10

a. Major Player……………………………………………………………….10

b. Revenue Model……………………………………………………...........11

4. Search in sub category: Job search……………………………………12

a. Major Player………………………………………………………………12

b. Niche segment for job seekers……………………………………………13

c. Revenue Model……………………………………………………………15

5. Search in sub category: Matrimonial Search………………………… 18

a. Matrimonial Sector overview ……………………………………………18

b. Current Major Player……………………………………………………..18

c. Different types of matrimonial search…………………………………...19

d. Measuring industry competitiveness……………………………………..20

i. Porter’s 5 force analysis for Bride / Groom Search………………………...20

ii. Porter’s 5 force Analysis for Wedding Accessories Search………………...21

iii. Porter’s Analysis for Self- Wedding Planners……………………………..22

e. Revenue Model……………………………………………………............23

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………24



3

Search engine

A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP

servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results and are often called hits. The

information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Some search engines

also mine data available in databases or open directories. Unlike web directories, which are maintained by

human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input.

Web crawler

A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical,

automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers,

bots, Web spiders, Web robots or especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters.

This process is called Web crawling or spidering. Many sites, in particular search engines, use

spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all

the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide

fast searches. Crawlers can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a Web site, such as

checking links or validating HTML code. Also, crawlers can be used to gather specific types of

information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses (usually for sending spam).

A Web crawler is one type of bot, or software agent. In general, it starts with a list of URLs to

visit, called the seeds. As the crawler visits these URLs, it identifies all the hyperlinks in the page and

adds them to the list of URLs to visit, called the crawl frontier. URLs from the frontier are recursively

visited according to a set of policies.

The large volume implies that the crawler can only download a fraction of the Web pages within

a given time, so it needs to prioritize its downloads. The high rate of change implies that the pages might

have already been updated or even deleted.

Google

Google Search, a web search engine, is the most popular service in Internet search, Google

indexes billions of web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of

keywords and operators. Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet



4

search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. The company was founded by Larry Page and

Sergey Brin on September 4, 1998. Google runs over one million servers in data centers around the world,

and processes over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data

every day.

Google consists of three distinct parts with fast parallel processing.

Googlebot, a web crawler that finds and fetches web pages

The Indexer, which sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words in a huge

database.

The Query Processor, which compares your search query to the index and recommends the documents

that it considers most relevant.

Yahoo

Yahoo is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine (Yahoo! Search). Yahoo! was

founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994.

Yahoo! is able to collect far more data about Web users than its competitors from its search

pattern on Web sites and its advertising network. By one measure, on average Yahoo! had the potential in

December 2007 to build a profile of 2,500 records per month about each of its visitors.

As of May 22, 2008, an article in computer world states that Yahoo has a 2-petabyte, specially

built data warehouse, which it uses to analyze the behavior of its half-billion Web visitors per month,

processing 24 billion events a day. Yahoo claimed it is expected to grow in multiples of 10 petabytes by

2009 and that this database is the largest in the world.

Bing

Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is a web search engine

from Microsoft. Bing was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009.

Bing search engine consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler.



5

Every 24 hours, the background image of the search engine's home page changes and features a different

location, animal or activity every time. Mousing over the image will produce facts about the thing in

question and links you to alternate sites to find out more information.

Here are some latest search engines…

Wikihow.com

WikiHow is a crowd-sourced how-to guide, powered by Media Wiki, the service that powers

Wikipedia. Users put together steps, tips, and warnings on any topic and other users can make additions

or edits to those articles.

The service has more than 50,000 how-to articles, which are constantly being updated and edited.

They're usually found in the results from major search engines, which have led to a steady month-by-

month growth since the service launched in early 2005.

eHow.com

eHow is a free how-to site that includes both videos and articles. The site enlists the help of

professionals to create the more than 300,000 articles that provide step-by-step text instructions. It also

has articles that are written by its users, bringing the total to 500,000 guides.

Most of its guides consist of step-by-step instructions, tips and warnings, and a user comment

section where people can add their results or opinions. Registered users are also able to claim having done

something mentioned in a guide, which is kept track of in their profiles and listed on guide pages.

The site also lets you print any of its articles for free, which can be nice when you want to bring

instructions with you.

Scour.com

Scour is a search tool that blends results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN together in one stream.You can hot-swap between the three, and break out any single result into another search. If you come

across a bad result, or one you think should go above the others, you can also vote it up (or down) or

leave a comment.

Unlike traditional search engines, Scour also has something called Friends Feed, which keeps

track of friends on the service and tells you what results they are commenting on. It also rewards users



6

with gift cards for searching, voting, and commenting on good results; doling out points for each user

action.

While controversial, and disruptive, the idea of giving users the power to edit search results has

become a feature on more mainstream search engines, including Google which added it in late 2008.

Where Scour's longevity lies is in blending the results from multiple search engines, and rewarding users

that help make them better.

Revenue model

Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's Ad Words

allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-

per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google Ad Sense, allows website owners to display

these advertisements on their website, and earn money every time ads are clicked. Ninety-nine percent of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs.

For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and

only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. Google has implemented various innovations in the

online advertising market that helped make them one of the biggest brokers in the market.

For Yahoo, About 88% of total revenues for the fiscal year 2009 came from marketing services.

The largest segment of it comes from search advertising, where advertisers bid for search terms to display

their ads on the search results, on average Yahoo! makes 2.5 cents to 3 cents from each search. With the

new search advertising system Panama, Yahoo! aims to increase revenue generated from search.

Other forms of advertising which bring in revenue for Yahoo! include display and contextual

advertising.



7

Search in sub category: Video, Audio & Music

YouTube.com

YouTube is the most well-known video service on the Internet. YouTube lets anyone share

videos online, either from their hard drive or recorded using their computer's Web cam. It uses Adobe

Flash and a simple video player that starts playing videos right away.

YouTube has paved the way for a variety of other services and evolved its own services with new

features such as user profiles, video rankings, and a system that lets anyone reply to a video either with

text or another video. It's also introduced some controversial features such as video viewing history, and

displaying who's watching a video at the same time you are.

In the past year, YouTube's rolled out high-definition video, a completely redesigned homepage,and a tool that tracks what you're watching and shares it with others in real-time. The site is also rumored

to have a live video service in the works.

Hulu.com

Hulu is a Web video service from NBC Universal and Fox Entertainment Group. Designed as a

deterrent for online privacy, Hulu lets users watch full-length movies and TV shows right in their

browser, and with limited commercials and other on-page advertising.

Unlike sites like YouTube, everything on Hulu comes directly from the content providers, and not

from users. Another thing that sets it apart from most other video sites, is that content is set to expire after

a certain amount of time on the service. This is in part to encourage users to watch programming while it's

on TV, as well as boost DVD sales.

Hulu is currently limited to desktop computers; however a mobile version is rumored to be on the

way later this year.

Amazon.com/video on demand

Amazon's Video on Demand is a cross-platform, video delivery service. Users can download

videos from Amazon and watch them on a number of devices. Also, certain televisions and set-top boxes

allow users to browse, purchase, and watch the videos without ever visiting Amazon.com.



8

Amazon's Video on Demand has both movies and television shows that can be purchased

outright, or rented. Rentals only last 24 hours, but are usually less than a third the cost of purchasing the

content.

Apple.com/iTunes

ITunes is Apple's jukebox software and a gateway to Apple's online media store and portable

devices like iPods and iPhones. It's currently in its eighth release, and now features a built-in

recommendation tool that can create playlists based on listening habits from your library, as well as other

iTunes users.

The software started out as Mac-only, but became cross-platform with Windows shortly after

Apple realized that it could make more money from music and movie sales than with iPods alone.

Last.fm

Last.fm is a music discovery and listening service. It's got a wide range of tracks users can listen

to and share with others. It also has a recommendation engine that will give you a list of artists it thinks

you'll like, based your personal favorites. Users can make their own playlists and even share them with

friends using the service's widget-making tool or Facebook application.

One of its more helpful services for music junkies is Scrobbling, which tracks the music you're

listening to on your computer and sends the information to Last.fm. From there, everyone can look at

what you've been listening to, how often you've listened to it, and give it a go themselves. Users also can

have their own blogs where they can write about and reference music they're listening to, or just write

about whatever they want.

Revenue Model

Advertising:

This is the most obvious and widely-accepted model. Nevertheless, within this category, there are

several sub-categories, including text ads and video ads. Up until now, YouTube has only opted for text

ads. But pre-roll, post-roll, or interstitial video ads may be right around the corner. Many video sites

already display these ads, so it’s nothing new or extraordinary. YouTube may be hesitant as they don’t

want to ruin the user experience that they’ve come to be known for. Moreover, YouTube had



9

implemented an e-mail ad campaign, whereby sponsored/ad-supported e-mails are mailed out to users on

a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Subscription:

The video giant could force users to pay a small monthly fee to access certain parts of the site, or

perhaps high-quality content. The subscription would eliminate ads and provide better streaming quality.

It is not my belief that the entire site should be subjected to a subscription-based model, as this would

cause a user back-lash. But by providing premium features at a small cost, this may prove to be a

lucrative revenue stream.

Affiliate:

This category is somewhat similar to advertising, but focused more on CPA (cost-per-action). In

other words, website only benefits when a user buys or pays for the given service displayed on the side of

the page. Pay-outs are much better than CPMs (Cost per thousand impressions) or CPC (Cost per click),

but less frequent. If YouTube can quantify and justify a case for an affiliate program, then it may be

something to explore. The affiliate products closely reflect the content of the video being viewed. That

way, the user experience remains optimal and the targeted affiliate link may be more likely to incite a user

click-through.

Content:

This is similar to the Google Video strategy. In order words, users upload their videos /audio and

smack a price on them. If people download them and they sell, the user gets paid out and website receivesa commission on the sale. Think of iTunes for user-generated video content.



10

Search in sub category: Real State

Online real estate information-seekers make noticeably better online consumers. They are noticeably

more receptive to all types of online marketing stimuli, and despite not being any more affluent than the

overall net users they buy online significantly more (53% compared to43% among all internet users).

The online real estate market is highly fragmented with no clear category leader. With fairly

evenly spread user preference shares among the top players the online real-estate market appears to be a

highly fragmented one currently. Google tops with 17% of all online real-estate users preferring to visit it

the most. Magicbricks and Yahoo follow as close 2nd and 3rd with 14% user share each and 99acres and

Real estate’s are not far behind at4th and 5th position with 10% user share each.

As 45% of user preference for the category still remains with such generic portals, clearly the

category is still evolving towards becoming a branded one butisn’tone yet.99acres and Magicbricks users

are the most premium and most savvier net users among the real estate info seekers.

99acrespreferring real-estate info seekers show the best socio-economic profiles and affluence

levels, followed closely by the Magicbricks preferring ones.99acres ones are also relatively the most

mature image, most employed and ‘head’ of their households. They together with the Magicbricks ones

show relatively the best family income profiles and show the highest ownerships of most household and

financial assets. 99acres preferring real-estate info seekers are distinctly more experienced net users,

display a higher home based net access and buy online relatively the most. Magicbricks ones, together

with the99acres ones participate in blogs and online communities relatively the most.

In terms of online activities, by and large 99acres and Magicbricks preferring ones undertake

professional online activities and e-commerce related online activities noticeably more. On the other hand

the ones preferring Google, Yahoo and Real estate’s tend to undertake most personal and entertainment

related online activities significantly more.

Major players

Site ARU

Google 17%

Megabricks 14%

Yahoo 14%

99acres 10%

Realestates 10%

Rediff 7%

Indiaproperty 5%

Indiatimes 2%



11

Revenue Model

1) Featured Listing:

Amount paid for the property listing to appear on top of search results.

2) Advertisements:

Through Pay per click / Pay per visit model. Advertisement can either be through advertisement

engines like Google ad sense or direct contract or both.

3) Customized property page:

Some real estate sites like trulia.com offer you an option to form a micro-site. This ensures better

conversion rate and more traffic.

4) Virtual Tours:

Some sites like imagemaker360.com provide premium services like an additional option to design a

3D virtual tour to the property. The property owner just has to upload pictures and property details.

5) Additional Services:

Over a period of time websites have come out with innovative services to differentiate themselves and

boost their top line. For e.g. IProperty offers a service of offering property loan, MagicBricks has

launched property phone line service called ‘MagicBricks on phone’.



12

Search in sub category: Job search

Major Players:

Naukri.com

Naukri.com is the no.1 job portal in India according to the survey conducted by HT. Started in 1997

by Sanjiv Bikhchandani; Naukri.com has used the first mover’s advantage to its benefit and has grown

rapidly. True to its mission statement – “ Every person looking for a Job should get one” naukri.com lists

more than 35000 employers and has a database of more than 19 million resumes.

To hold on to its market leader status naukri.com has come out with a host of innovative features.

NaukriOnChat is one of these features. This feature enables a user to search for a job without even

logging on to Naukri.com. It’s as simple as chatting. To search for a job a person needs to be a registered

user of naukri.com and the only other thing that is needed is to add [email protected] his friend list

on Gtalk. Now when you enter the text in the text window it takes it as a search string and gives out the

results based on it.

One of the more interesting features that naukri.com offers is Paycheck. With paycheck one can get

to know the salary that other people are earning with a similar profile as his. Paycheck can also help the

user determine how his salary is going to vary with city that he works in, with time and seniority or with

the shift of industry that he works in. Paycheck is a tool which can help you know what is going on in the

industry, what the trend is in the market what should he do to progress in his career. It can guide you to

go for a course or certification by give out the latest trends in the market. So to sum it up paycheck is the

answer to the questions “ Am I being paid right? What can I do to earn more?”

Naukri.com has also ventured into various niche segments like Campus Hiring with

FirstNaukri.com. It lists various jobs and internships for students and fresh graduates. It also intends to

connect campuses to employers to ensure smooth campus hiring. Another such venture of Naukri.com is

Shiksha.com. This portal intends to provide information and a platform to discuss various career options.

This site gives out information about various courses the institute that offers these courses and can

suggest you a course that could suit your interests.

MonsterJobs.com

Mosnterjobs.com has a presence in more than 26 countries with a collection of more than 41 million

CV’s in their database this truly shows that it is a monster. MonsterIndia uses the best of the technology;



13

its Magic search has been a revolutionary tool for the employers to enable the searches of high quality. It

has been rated best job site by PC World Web world awards 2007 & 2008 on the basis of Site

Technology, Design, Usability and Content. MonsterIndia has come up with innovative features like

Psychometric Test to help the prospective employee to select a suitable job and also Career Astrology for

those who believe in luck. MonsterIndia was the first site to launch video resume service for the

employers. With its multinational presence and technological superiority MonsterIndia is a force toreckon with.

TimesJobs.com

TimesJobs.com is a site with difference. Apart from the regular stuff on other online job portals

TimesJobs offer features that are unique to it. Best consultants Zone is one such feature, which brings

together the jobs from major consultants under one roof. TimesJobs is one site, which conducts Job Fairs

and Walk-ins regularly. Timesjob.com has also collaborated with the Indian Army Placement Agency

(APA) in 2005, to leverage the skills of the retiring army personnel in facilitating their entry into the

corporate world.It has carved out a niche in the Job portal segment and this will surely hold it in good

stead in times to come.

Niche Segment for Job Seekers

Some of the web 2.0 websites cater to niche market of customers having specific needs. E.g. some are

specifically made for people fresh out of colleges without any prior work experience; some cater to the

jittery souls looking for campus placements. Some are specifically looking after people who want govt.

jobs, some specifically to those wanting to go abroad for jobs. There are also sites available for people

interested in a specialized field of work like banking.

Some might think that these sites, by not catering to a vast talent pool ready to be acquired, are losing

out on business opportunity. But actually they know their target customers so well, that they become the

market leaders in the segment by acting like a bible for their customers’ needs and wants for information.

Let us take a few examples of sites running on the above business model.

Freshersworld.com

The site with a name that goes perfectly in sync with its mission statement - “To facilitate fresh

graduates find first dream jobs!”. This site has been there since the year 2000 and they claim to have



14

helped more than 500,000 graduates find their first dream jobs. They also boast of having an active

network of over 4000 companies associated with them.

Apart from the usual like discussion forums and placement papers database, this site has come up

with a never seen before concept of “Campus Ambassador”. A 5 min browsing through this section of

their site makes you realize this is a win - win situation for all. A campus ambassador can not only help

her institute have the best of the resources available for fresher’s recruitment but also gets an opportunity

to get a firsthand experience of industry functioning apart from the goodies from the site. The portal in

return gains a huge market share and ensures that its visibility in the campus is never sidelined by any of

its competitors.

In order to let the student remain glued to this site, career information like Higher studies, Fresher’s

News, GD Tips & Mocks, scholarships etc have been made readily accessible. It also tries to be highly

competitive by providing job feeds according to domain interests like software jobs, bpo jobs, govt. jobs,

defense jobs, civil services and internship opportunities.

Blanketjobs.com

A more of an informative site, this is about banking jobs in India. A venture of the Banknet group,

this portal tries to provide the banking aspirants a zone of their own. Informative articles likeCV writing

tips and what banks look for in job applicant gives a peak at the psyche of the future employers and the

industry as a whole. Its discussion forums are the main medium for job seekers to get help from this site.

Standoutjobs.com

The job portals are now being threatened by an emerging new player in the market: - the companies

themselves. Sites like Standout Jobs help create Web 2.0 enabled site or recruitment micro-site in days

instead of months. The popularity of such micro sites is so huge that a large number of companies have

started these as the foundation for their social recruiting strategies. Some of the major clients of Standout

Jobs include Thomas & King, Quantum Corporation and Erricson.

These sites can have multiple landing pages which are well-branded, and can include interactive and

Web 2.0 features such as chat, polls and blogs. Alternatively you can have a micro site which will have an

exact look of the company’s corporate website. They also provide services for building long term

relationships with job seekers and candidates through email campaigns.



15

Revenue Model

Sources of Revenue

Usually 90% of the total revenue comes from corporate and only 10% comes from job-seekers. There are

two main revenue generators: Corporate and job-seekers

From corporate clients

Job portals provide space to employers to post the job requirements. This space usually varies with the

kind of package the employer opts for. Basic package entails listings equivalent to those on newspaper

classifieds. Premium package offering varies from providing micro site to placing their advertisements at

the home page.

Web portals also offer application screening facilities to employers at a premium. For eg. RESDEX

Service by naukri.com allows client firm to trawl through resumes for a right match. It accounts for 40 %for its revenue.

From job-seekers

Job portals provide a wide array of services like resume development services, response booster

services, resume highlight service, cover letter facilities at a premium to the job-seekers. Resume

development service is again customized according to seeker need and is charged accordingly. For

example: Fresher’s resume, Mid-career resume, senior level resume, Premium Resume. Response booster

service tweaks the visibility of the resume in accordance to the package opted for. A better package

increases the chances of getting an interview call.eg. Resume highlight helps to attract more attention of

employers by differentiating the resume from other job seekers resume.Monster.com came out with a

revolutionary Video resume development service after timesjobs voice resume service. This service

boosts the appeal of the resume manifolds. Some job portals like timesjobs.com also offer career

counseling services.

Other initiatives taken to boost revenue:

Promotional tie-up: Job portals land into a tie-up. E.g. Naukri benefited from the free space given

by the newspapers. The quid pro quo was that it lists their advertisements

free on its site.

Barter Deals: Naukri.com does inform to HR managers for their HR events based on the database of

the HR managers it has built up. In return, the firm for which the mailer was done

would sponsor naukri.com at the event



16

• Net sales revenue of naukri.com catapulted from Rs 191.64mn in FY 03-04 to Rs 2116.46mn in FY

08-09.

• Hits of naukri.com and monster.com witnessed an increase of approx. 185% and 160% in last 1 year.

The above figures clearly indicate the meteoric rise in the use of employment portals. This significant

increase in popularity was not unplanned and off-hand, it was the fallout of the meticulous planning,

lucrative offering, partnerships, diligent sales team and external factors like proliferation of internet, etc.

Benefit Analysis

Employers:

Convenience in hiring: It saves time and money of employer.

Wider choice: Since all candidates gather at same platform employers have more candidates with

requisite skills to choose from.

Online advertisement : These advertisements directly focus on the target segment i.e. job-seekers since

job portal websites are usually visited by them.

Job Seekers:

Convenience: Easy uploading of resume, single resume upload targets all companies.

Inexpensive: Basic services are available free of cost

Wide exposure: Since job portals are flanked by various prospective employers’ job portals provide

better exposure to their resume.

Resume related services: These are usually available for a premium services

Cost Analysis

Web portals incur huge product and service development. These are usually unit-one costs. I.e.

the cost of producing first unit is very high as compared to subsequent units of that kind. E.g. The

Products and Services that Naukri.com sells to clients run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It hires

developers. Employees are also hired to handle marketing and other tasks. Staff cost for naukri.com

increased from Rs. 76.28mn to Rs.933.88 mn from FY 07-08 to FY 08-09.



17

Job portals like any other business spend a substantial amount on advertisement. The major chunk

goes on online advertisements placed on yahoo, msn, google etc. These costs are incurred on per-click

basis. Advertising and promotional costs of naurkri.com clocked Rs.433.20mn in FY 08-09.

Costs are incurred on creating and maintaining of networks. These include server costs, network

cost etc. As the hits of site increase the network costs also increased. Since more space and bandwidth

will be requirements increase. Network cost for naukri.com increased from Rs. 60.53mn to Rs.90.41 mn

from FY 07-08 to FY 08-09.

Job portals also incur some cost on job fairs. Job fairs offer them a faster way to increase their

portal’s visibility and popularity among its target clients.



18

Search in sub category: Matrimonial Search

Sector overview (Indian Perspective)

In a country of 1.21 billion people, 55 millions are Internet users, in which

50% users live in the five metros only.

80% users are well-qualified

Current Internet growth rate: 25% to 30% YOY.

No. 1 in searching mates on matrimonial sites

Current market base is of 30 million users

Matrimonial sites is globally the 13th most popular online activity

Globally over 35 million users are active on matrimonial sites.

Organized matrimonial business in India is Rs 2,000 crores (Rs 20 billion).

Projected growth rate of 120 % in online marriage sector.

Major Current Players

• Bharatmatrimony.com

• Shaadi.com

• Jeevansathi.com

• SimplyMarry.com

• Bandhan.com

• Elitematrimony.com

• M4marry.com

Current Base at glance

Shaadi.com has created a world-renowned service that has touched over 20 million people. In

2009 Shaadi.com was evaluated to be of around 1500 Crores,

BharatMatrimony has reportedly more than 12 million members from 15 regional matrimonial

websites.



19

Different types of matrimonial search

Major players in each segment

Bride / Groom Search

1. BharatMatrimony.com

2. Shaadi.com

3. Jeevansathi.com

Wedding accessories

1. Theindianweddingcards.com

2. Weddingsutras.com

3. Indianwedding.com

Wedding planner

a) Self-planning

1. Indiaweddingplanner.com

2. Bigindianwedding.com

Professional

Planner

Self

Planner



20

b) Professional Wedding Planning

1. Shaadionline.com

2. Marrymeweddings.in

Measuring industry competitiveness

Porter’s 5 force analysis for Bride / Groom Search (For matrimony sites)

Explanation:

Bargaining power of buyers is high since they can switch over to another competitor who

happens to have similar prices, brand equity and service portfolio (Comparing Bharatmatrimony, Shaadi,

Jeevansathi).

At BharatMatrimony.com for instance, the membership fee ranges from a minimum of Rs. 1,790

(US$38) for three months to Rs. 5,790 (US$125) for nine months. At Shaadi.com, the price ranges from

Rs. 1,950 (US$40) for three months to Rs. 4,450 (US$95) for 12 months. At Jeevansaathi.com, it ranges

from Rs. 1,295 (US$25) for two months to Rs. 3,500 (US$75) for nine months.



21

Since the prices and service portfolio are comparable users can switch over to another. The

suppliers for the companies are those who offer IT services for site maintenance or servers, etc. They

have low bargaining power due to a large number of such suppliers available.

Threat of substitutes is high because the several other platforms also support in match-making

like chat rooms, dating sites, social networks, etc. Threats of new entrants are also high since the initial

capital required to set up a website is not very high. The industry scores high on competition as sites likebharatmatrimony and shaadi have a very strong user base.

These sites have been in existence since almost last 15 years (Bharatmatrimony: 1997, Shaadi:

1996) and hold a strong market share which is tough to take away.

Porter’s 5 force Analysis for Wedding Accessories Search (theindianweddingcards.com

etc.)

Explanation: Bargaining power of buyers is high since they can switch over to another to popular buying sites

like eBay. The major suppliers for the companies are those who offer wedding accessories.

They have low bargaining power since websites have large number of firms to purchase

accessories from. Threat of substitutes is high because of availability of several other options to purchase

wedding accessories from. Threat from new entrants is also high since the initial capital required to set



22

up a website is not very high. The industry scores low on internal competition as there is no very

dominant player.

Porter’s 5 force Analysis for self wedding planner (indianweddingplanner.com etc.)

Explanation:

Bargaining power of buyers is low since the services rendered by the sites are mostly free. The

suppliers for the companies are those who vendors who list over on these sites. They have low bargaining

power since they only have to shell out a small listing fee and if they don’t list themselves they stand a

chance to lose a potential business. Threat of substitutes is high because of availability. Threat from new

entrants is also high since the initial capital required to set up a website is not very high. The industry

scores low on internal competition as there is no dominant player.



23

Revenue Models

Listing Fee:

It is the fee which vendors will pay to get their names listed on the site’s database. The name pops

out during the relevant search over site. This will be typically very less and will be paid

quarterly/annually.

Conversion Fee:

It is the fee charged from vendors after every successful conversion

Advertisements:

Through Pay per click / Pay per visit model. Advertisement can either be through advertisement

engines like Google Ad sense or direct contract or both.



24

Conclusion

Search and references in web world is like a water drop in ocean, when there are plenty of search

engines are available in the web, finding specific search is little difficult. In this vast web pool a

‘dedicated search engine’ is like a breath of fresh air.

In this world when distance is no longer a issue, finding life partner is become much more easier

than it used to be earlier. And that’s where the wedding planner websites plays a part to ease out your

arrangement for marriage.

There is saying “Marriage is made in heaven” and matrimonial and wedding planner website is

playing a significant role for helping the people.

Search and references for dedicated wedding planner web site is niche market and we have fair

chance for grab the opportunity at the right time.

From this it can be concluded that if invested in Self-Wedding planning business along with

innovation in business model there is a strong possibility of grabbing up the market share easily and

emerging a market leader.



References

• ‘Term paper on Online Job Portals ‘ by Vardhan Y., Choudhary K., Wadhwa N., Gupta

P; VGSOM.

• ‘Online Media and Search’ by TNS Compete

• www.wikipedia.org

• http://www.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2009/winners.html

Documents

Search & Reference_ Blinking Dots