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Market analysis and business expansion of WeddingYatra

SIP project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the PGDM

Programme

By : Abizer Badshah (2013008)

Supervisors: 1. Mr. Mitesh Mehta

2. Prof. Shiv Nath Sinha

Institute Of Management Technology, Nagpur.

(2013-15)

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Acknowledgement: I must acknowledge my indebtedness to various personalities, without whom, this project could

not have seen the light of the day. My gratefulness to the company head Mr. Mitesh Mehta who

has guided me through my project and for correcting various documents of mine with attention

and care. He has showed me full interest during my doubts and cleared it very cleverly. My deep

sense of recognition to Mr. Umesh Uttamchandani, partner of Wedding Yatra for his support and

guidance.

Thank you sir.

I would also like to thank my Institution and my faculty guide Prof. Shiv Nath Sinha without

whom this project would have been a distant reality.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgement:..................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5

Objectives of the study: ................................................................................................................................ 7

Company description .................................................................................................................................... 8

Membership Plans: ................................................................................................................................. 10

Company Analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 11

Major Competitors: ................................................................................................................................. 14

SWOT Analysis of Wedding Yatra ............................................................................................................... 15

Methodology: .............................................................................................................................................. 16

Marketing Plan- ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Appendices: ................................................................................................................................................. 22

Findings ....................................................................................................................................................... 24

Recommendations: ..................................................................................................................................... 25

Future Scope ............................................................................................................................................... 26

Bibliography: ............................................................................................................................................... 27

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Introduction

India is known for its rich culture and its USP is its unity in diversity. Indians love and respect

their traditions. Even today, arranged marriages are done with blessings from both the families.

Wedding is an auspicious event for every Indian and they are highly involved in each and every

ritual associated with wedding. Thus, wedding in India is not only a relationship between two

individuals rather it is relationship of two families, souls and much more.

People from all the religions in world can be found residing in India, making it a very unique and

rich in cultural diversity. It is also known that there are various caste and creeds in India. Every

caste has their own specific customs, giving us opportunity for us to witness different styles of

weddings.

The question of marriage arises when you know or you have a perfect soul mate. With advent of

Internet in most of the urban and semi urban homes, online matrimony sites have grown. People

are finding such sites convenient and user friendly and options available are much more and better

than what provided by traditional marriage brokers. Online Matrimonial Services are internet

based matrimonial database which helps users to search and look for the partners. In India, online

matrimony sites are popular in urban and semi urban areas. It is also popular among Indians settled

abroad. Matrimonial search is the 13th most popular activity on the internet among the 88 million

urban users in India.

With a strong market in the country, there are lot of matrimony sites and are having huge turnovers.

Some of the popular online matrimonial services are Shaadi.com, BharatMatrimony.com and

Jeevansaathi.com etc. The sites asks user to register them, upload their profile into database

maintained by websites. User has liberty to not to disclose certain information in public. Filtration

is allowed so that user can get what he desires to.

Internet boom in India started in late 90’s and only few years have been passed since matrimony

websites are in the market. Since the decision takers in families are not tech savvy yet, Indians

feel hesitated in using the matrimony sites. These sites are designed by keeping all the Indian

traditions and customs so that people from all the religion and culture can use it.

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In India, age group ranging 25-35 forms the largest base of matrimonial users, followed by 19-24

age groups. Some of the offline matrimonial services are changing their strategy are coming up

with their own websites and giving stiff competition to existing players. Through research it has

been observed that people comfortable with internet are more satisfied with online matrimonial

sights rather than traditional form of matchmaking. With increase in number of internet users in

India, the market of online matrimony has lot of potential.

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Objectives of the study

� The basic objective of this study was to promote the brand Wedding Yatra in new market

in different geographies of India primarily in state of Gujarat.

� To generate revenue from B2B sales via sales force.

� To gain in-depth knowledge of functions like Sales, HR, Marketing in online matrimony

sector.

� To perform online and offline promotion of products.

� To know the areas of improvements in the company services.

� To study the effect of promotions done.

� To attract more customers.

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Company description

In modern India the ideal blend between Indian Traditional system and Modern Technology has

created an ecosystem for Bachelors of the country to find for themselves a perfect match for their

life. The company uses various advertising mediums to keep growing its sales. Few examples

include distributing pamphlets, conducting online/digital media marketing, posting blogs in

social media websites, word of mouth, and print media (local newspapers). The company tries to

achieve its target by employing effective sales force.

It is established with a sole aim to provide all matrimonial services at one place. Wedding Yatra

specialize in providing Matchmaking Service, Organizing Wedding Event and Designing

Honeymoon Package. It provides customized end to end solutions for our clients and not only

enhance our valuable relationship with customer by providing our one of a kind match making

service but also help customer by providing allied wedding services like Wedding Decor

Services and Designing Honeymoon Packages.

MISSION:

Our mission is to help people find their perfect match. We will continue to provide people with

better services in matchmaking, wedding events through continuous innovation in services, tools

and technologies that can help them to get endless happiness.

About Wedding Yatra Services:

Matchmaking:

� Personalized matchmaking services.

� Filtration done on candidate’s choice

� Privacy is taken care of

� Facility of uploading and sharing of pics with one whom u want (with option of password

protection)

� Share thoughts using blogs and forums.

� Wedding Events:

� Specialized team of exhibition, interior, textile and accessory designers from the National

Institute of Design.

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� Provides Honeymoon Packages both in India and foreign countries.

Wedding Yatra has a large database of Indian Brides and Grooms. It is the responsibility to make

sure that customer receive what he is looking for in his potential life partner. Wedding Yatra

helps customer to get connected with his dream partner and also it is one of the India’s most

trusted matrimony service provider. It has been providing superior matchmaking experience to

customers. The advantage of meeting local dream partner can also be fulfilled with Wedding

Yatra.

Wedding Décor:

We have been offering wedding decor services for over 6 years for all kinds of social events like

Engagement, Mehndi, Sangeet, Youngster party, Cocktail Wedding & Reception functions. We

have a specialized team of exhibition, interior, textile and accessory designers from the National

Institute of Design.

Honeymoon Packages:

Provide exotic honeymoon locations at both India and foreign countries.

Why Online?

“Matrimonial Portals: Tradition and Technology Are a Perfect Match for Those Looking Online”

online article published in the year 2008 seem to have proclaimed the maturity of Indian online

matrimony business has come of age and adding value to the Indian Service Economy.

With the internet, a new economic system has evolved, known as the e-commerce marketplace.

The new economic concept involves exchange of goods and other services throughout the globe,

over the internet.

Entrepreneurs and investors believe that online matrimonial websites are a sure-fire success story

in India simply because of the fact that it caters to an extremely strong need of the Indian market

in general. Further this business is recession proof.

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Membership Plans

Free

Basic (Rs. 1000 for 6 months) Priority (Rs. 15000 for 3

months)

View Latest Activities View Latest Activities View Latest Activities

Read Messages Read Messages Read Messages

View Profiles 5 Per Day View Profiles 20 Per Day View Profiles Unlimited

Search Profiles Search Profiles Search Profiles

View & Zoom Photos View & Zoom Photos View & Zoom Photos

View Videos View Videos View Videos

Total 5 Express Interest Express Interest Unlimited Express Interest

Upload Photos Upload Photos Upload Photos

Profile Records Profile Records Profile Records

Read Forum Read Forum Read & Write Forums

Send Messages 20 Per Day Send Messages Unlimited

Use Private Chat Use Private Chat

Add Comments Add Comments

Tag Lines Tag Lines

Set Password Protected Photos Set Password Protected Photos

Add Blog Posts

Horoscope

Relationship Manager

Exclusive Discount

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Company Analysis

Porter’s 5 forces model:

Fig. Porter’s 5 forces Model

Threat of new entrants:

• Low amount of capital is required to enter this market.

• Existing companies can hardly do something to retaliate.

• Existing firms do not possess patents, trademarks.

• There is no government regulation.

• Low barrier to entry.

• Services are nearly identical.

• Economies of scale can be easily achieved.

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• Few legal barriers protect existing companies from new entrants

Also era of technology and number of users accessing net have increased tremendously, so scope

to reach customers has increased thus more players will try to enter.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers:

• There are few suppliers but many buyers.

• Suppliers are large and threaten to switch.

• Suppliers hold scarce resources like new technologies.

• Cost of switching is low.

• Threat of forward Integration is high.

Threat of substitutes:

• Number of players for substitutes.

• Performance of substitutes.

• Cost of shifting is low.

Bargaining Power of Buyers:

• There are many buyers.

• Most of the buyers register themselves in matrimony portal.

• It doesn’t cost much for buyers to switch to another matrimonial firm.

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• Buyers can easily choose alternative matrimonial, switching cost is low.

• Buyers are least price sensitive and their decision is often based on the service they get.

• Buyers do not threaten backward integration.

Competition Rivalry:

• High number of competitors.

• Industry is very large but have big competitors.

• Size of competing firm’s vary but they usually compete for different consumer segments.

• Customers are loyal to their brands.

• There is high threat of being acquired by a competitor.

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Major Competitors

Shaadi.com Bharatmatrimony.c

om

Globalalliancematrimony.

com

Jeevansathi.c

om

Target audience

Unmarried youth

Parents and youth Parents and youth Unmarried youth

Market share

43% Maximum about-45%

Less than 4% 8%

Key benefits

Name is easy to search

Largest online arranged marriage site Word of mouth

Focus only on communities matrimonial

Most of traffic from India

packages

-free reg -400 per month -diamond 550 per month -gold 734 per month

-free reg -1990 for 3month -2590 fro 3 month -2890 for 3 month

-free -premium

-free reg -1295 for 2 month -1700 for 2month

Services

-Personal as well as international advisor -assistance to investigation cell to tackle fraud users -24*7 help -ematchmaking tool -astro

-display results without registration -personal matchmaker tool -regional sites -horoscope matchmaking

-live help 24*7 --meeting lounge -astrologer -staff of 4 in single profile -one time membership -medical examination -relationship manager -ad of paid clients in hindustan times

- many paid membership options -astro compatibility -message and chat options

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SWOT Analysis of Wedding Yatra

Strengths:

• It provides matchmaking, wedding décor services and honeymoon packages all under one

roof.

• It has lowest membership fees for membership.

• It provides facility of relationship manager, who actively is involved in matchmaking

process across India.

• It has worked offline in this business for past 2 years and has experience staff to deal with

its clients.

Weakness:

• It lacks brand name.

• It has less number of profiles as compared to its competitors.

• No standard hierarchy.

• Trust issues are there as it is a startup company.

Opportunities:

• As less number of players are there in this segment, so the company has opportunity to

acquire the market.

• Excessive promotion will help to get more customer registrations.

• Location is Ahmedabad, which is the prime location of Gujarat which helps to gather

attention of larger pool of people.

Threats:

• Strong hold of major players in the market.

• Many regional websites are upcoming to offer such services.

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Methodology

Wedding Yatra came into existence in the year 2011, with services like matchmaking &

organising wedding events. It successfully provided more than 300 matchmaking till date. Now

this year it wants to expand its business all over india, for that the Plan introduces new strategies

that mainly focus on increasing the brand awareness, sales and growth of the company.

To effectively market your matchmaking business and attract matchmaking clients

through:

o Advertising

o A website

o Free publicity

o Networking

o Singles events

1) Demographic Factors: The majority (40%) of the users falls in the age group of 25-35, with a

majority belonging to urban areas.

2) Socio Cultural factors: A majority of the users of these services are the middle income group

with salaries above Rs 30,000 and with a good educational background.

3) Economic Factors: In conditions of economic recession, parents prefer grooms with a Public

sector job, depicting financial stability.

4) Political and Legal factors: The acceptance of LGTB rights (lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender) as well as the diplomatic policy of the government has an impact on the

matrimonial industry.

5) Technological factors: With advancement in technology like easy access to internet and

Mobiles, avenues have opened up for online matrimony to reach out to new markets and people.

6) Various microeconomic factors such as Customer needs, Competitor strategies, Use of media

for effective advertising and the contribution of employees also play an important role in the

strategy of the business.

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Marketing Plan

We have a directory specially designed for vendors/suppliers.

� Highly experienced and innovative event management staff.

� One window solutions to our customers.

� Offer distinct package types for vendors/suppliers.

� Wide range of options at just a few mouse clicks away for customers.

� City-wise classification of vendors/suppliers.

� We have a positive response from subscribers.

� We offer match making service as part of our passion, therefore we do not ask for huge

membership fees.

For vendors/suppliers.

Package formation:

Regular Package (INR 5000/- only)

� Display of vendors list on rotational basis (random manner).

� Enhance your brand image by uploading your company’s logo.

� Display your contact details and address directly to the customer.

� Lifetime validity.

Premium Package (INR10, 000/- only)

� Listing in top 3 search with company logo under your category.

� Enhance your brand image by uploading your company’s logo and 1 corporate video.

� Display your contact details and address directly to the customer.

� Will publish names in newspapers and magazines of all the suppliers with events.

� Microsite-

� Direct link to vendor’s webpage.

� 4 page website containing Home, About Us, Services, and Contact Us.

� Advertising and SEO.

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� QR code will be generated.

Combo Package-(INR12,000/- only)

Regular Package + Premium Package + Guaranteed 25 hot leads every month.

NOTE: The supplier was guaranteed of 35 leads per year, if supplier gets more than that, then first

20 will be his profit and rest is based on sharing profit percent of 15%.

Ex- If 40 marriage lead is there,

Income generated= 10,000+ 15% of profit from rest 20 marriages.

B2B Sales

B2B sales were one of the prime targets of the interns during the internship period. In B2B,

interns were asked to sell the idea of wedding directory to all the business related to wedding,

like Bridal shop, Jewelry, wedding planners etc. in Ahmedabad and Baroda. Some of the

companies I visited are listed in appendix.

Category and requirement –

Astrologer

Bridal wear

Catering

Beauty and makeup

Decoration

Hotels

Footwear

Light and sound

Jewelry

Photography

Cards

Cakes

Wedding gifts

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Promotional activities-

1)Online Advertising by creating events like event planning like open house discussion where

people can give their suggestions about time of planning of event , how to involve people, time

duration and other things .Also brides chat where interested customers can chat with

bride/bridegrooms for a limited time period.

2) Roadshow plays- Places where maximum common audience is there.

Places in Ahmedabad like near maninagar or in Vadodara like kala ghoda etc.

3) Event plan- Getting all the existing suppliers and customers under one roof.

Planned a Wedding Expo named as Wedding Festival, where the aim was to promote Wedding

Yatra as a brand and get associated with big players of matrimonial industry.

Pricing-

Compared to most big players our prices are low for customers.

The reason to keep a low budget is as we are new entrant in the market so we have to make sure

what quality of service is provided by us to be cost effective to build a brand image in the

market.

The USP Part-

The services we offer is a complete Yatra i.e. from matchmaking, wedding event to honeymoon

packages.

Focusing on 3 parameters:

-Giving a clarity to customers about the services we provide.

-Ease of using the service by giving the proper outline so that unacquainted users can access

easily.

-Keeping customers motivated by constantly enhancing serviceability.

The latest data from the Internet and Mobil Association of India (IAMAI) estimates the e-

commerce turnover was $7.0 billion in 2010, up from $2.8 billion in 2008. The majority of these

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deals, 80%, are related to booking travel (airways and railways) and hotels, with the remainder in

e-tailing, net banking, bill payments, stock trading, job searches, matrimonial searches, general

classifieds, online advertisement and online search marketing.

So get a chunk of mass people who are interested in any of the above mentioned services and

their search will bring them to us. Technology can be used by management to permit faster

response to customer enquiries and problems, to improve internal efficiency and productivity,

and to raise the switching costs of buyers.

Using technology in a way that enables more effective and efficient communication and

distribution modes, and more customers to be served at any single point in time. In addition, the

creation of customer self-service options allows the costs associated with servicing customers

personally to be minimized. “

Online-Matrimony do facilitate social interaction online in a way that their offline counterparts

do not. This is through email, chat rooms and one-to one synchronous communications like

‘Skype’ prior to developing any relationship(s) offline.

SAF Framework:

Suitability:

B-Plan strategy suitable for mostly Gujarati people. As new entrant in the market to capture

market, focusing the right customers like middle-income class family group and providing

services at affordable price from different vendors. Like different package that too at low cost

will benefit customers.

Economically from research we can see that there is large scope of matrimonial business in

India, also rise of technological era gives fruitful advantage.

Feasibility:

Low cost advertising is feasible as without creating a good brand, investing excessively on the

advertisements is not a good strategy.

Also implementing is cheap as it is online process.

Accessibility:

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As internet awareness is there in most of the urban population, so accessing webpage gives

advantage.

ROC (return on customer): Meeting the customers demand by providing them concise list of

suppliers and vendors. Also package offered to the customers helps us to what type of services to

be provided to customers.

Supplier to supplier:

Supplier gets option to recommend his choice of vendor for the event and price negotiable.

Customer database highlighted in a manner that people before going to any other resource will

definitely see through wedding yatra , where we provide their search with also an option of we

recommend by using filter options.

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Appendices

For Packages:

Labh Decorators

Aangan Farm

Anand Decorators Expo hub

NR events Shah Events

Efesto events Aeby Events

Shalibhadra event and decorators Namokar Events and projects

Nine Events Peppers event

Pinnacle Events Plan Ahead

Sublime Events Star Decorators and event management

NR events Shah Events

Ganesh Decorators Jain Decorators and Caterers

janta decorators Jayhind decorators

Tulip flora Star Tours and travels

favourite holiday makers Heena tourism

suraj florist Comfort holiday makers

Mahakali mandap decorators We do weddings

divya decorators Navkar decorators

Vidhi wedding and event planning Avdhot light decoration

9 miles travel celestial salon

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For Stalls:

AVANI BOUTIQUE kayaan jewels

LARA FASHION STUDIO manyavar vedant fashion

AMI RASHMI DESIGNER STUDIO anika silk

jeet collection Sanskruti

border museum monsoon designer shop

rahi creation Kallistaa

mahalaxmi sarees diamond boutique n jewellers

salman sarees ozone celebration wear

maya jewels aakruti jewelers

nanakshah cards shubham designer footwear

bhagwati card agency Pehnaava

card palace star and sitaara

venus spalon AMI RASHMI DESIGNER STUDIO

border museum LARA FASHION STUDIO

jeet collection mahalaxmi sarees

salman sarees manyavar vedant fashion

monsoon designer shop shree bhavani cards

Roopkala chandra cards

The successful were:

Charismatic Boutique , Mona Vora , La femme.

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Findings

1. Professional attitude among interns was missing.

2. No control over workings of interns.

3. Induction process was not up to mark.

4. Daily Evaluation system was not accurate.

5. No check over registrations.

6. Time-taking decision process.

7. No proper structure of organization which causes communication gap.

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Recommendations

• More varieties of membership packages for matrimonial services should be introduced.

• The website should updated regularly with new innovations & new designs i.e user

friendly.

• More measures should be taken to make the customers aware of the Wedding Yatra.

Special measures for promotions must be taken.

• More variety must be added to POD activities.

• Improving the matchmaking process by implementing MBTI tool for match making or to

filter candidates.( from the research article)

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Future Scope

Some new trends in this industry are movement towards brick and mortar model, Growth

potential in young economies, integrated platform for services like wedding planning, legal

services, etc. being made available and rise of niche matrimonial sites, catering to a particular

segment of customers. So special kind of services demand is there, where catering to needs of

such customers is essential.

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Bibliography

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

http://www.projectevolove.com/education/25/myers-briggs-dating#.Uz-SBfmSx0Y

http://www.lovetypes.com/index.html

http://dating.about.com/od/matchmakingsites/

http://ww2.valdosta.edu/~smokeefe/u3a2.htm

http://www.capt.org/take-mbti-assessment/contact.htm

http://www.im.org/Meetings/Past/2007/Documents/2007%20APDIM%20Chief%20Residents%2

0Meeting/Plenary%20Session%20V,%20MBTI%20Personality%20Type%20Test.pdf

http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/questionnaire/relationship

http://www.wikihow.com/Determine-Your-Myers-Briggs-Personality-Type

http://www.weddingyatra.com/about.html

Butt, J. (2005). Extraverted sensing thinking perceiving. TypeLogic. Retrieved from

http://typelogic.com/estp.html

Research article:

“Matrimonial Portals: Tradition and Technology Are a Perfect Match for Those Looking Online”

online

Article published in the year 2008.

http://www.icmis.net/ictbm/ictbm13/proceedings/pdf/D3111-done.pdf

Ref- Technology Driven Online Matrimonial Services-An India Specific Review

http://www.icmis.net/ictbm/ictbm13/proceedings/pdf/D3111-done.pdf