The Hindu Business Line : Shaadi.com to widen services portfolio

SHAADI Point, Shaadi.com's offline business division that won the Franchiser of the Year award last month, is looking to enlarge its portfolio from matrimonial services to include astrology services, wedding planning and grooming of aspirants in the next three to four months.

Cashing in on the country's tendency to actively engage in matchmaking, the company plans to add a panel of astrologers to its network who will advise parents on the route they should pursue for finding a bride or groom for their children.

After having established 70 offline franchises across 43 cities, Shaadi Point plans to extend its services so that it can offer complete wedding solutions to clients. "We have been the fastest growing franchisee network in a year and have won an award in just 18 months of existence," said Mr Omprakash Hassanandani, Business Head of Shaadi Point, and marketing head of Shaadi.com Enterprise. The company is planning a network of 250 centres within a year.

The Shaadi Point network is leveraging the technology advantage of Shaadi.com and has wired each offline unit to a central database of prospects across the nation through a proprietary technology specially built for this purpose.

By adding services such as astrology, matrimonial classifieds, matrimonial events and wedding planning to its portfolio, the company intends to lend structure to the fragmented matchmaking and wedding services industry in the country.

The wedding industry in the country, according to Mr Hassanandani, is Rs 70,000 crore and Shaadi Point, along with Shaadi.com, aims to be in the leadership position. "In India, matchmaking is a very stressful activity for parents. The idea is to relieve parents of this stress. We've had an exceptional response in the North and West of the country, barring Rajasthan, where it was lower than expected. While in the West and North matchmaking primarily takes into consideration the socio-economic status of the prospective families, the South depends more on horoscope matching," he said.

Shaadi.com, the online matchmaking service started in 1997, has a membership of over five million and five lakh matchmaking success stories. Thirty per cent of the membership is of non-resident Indians.

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