UNIVERSAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

KARJAT

Program Name: Entrepreneurial Strategies

Professor Name: Prof. Bibhas Bhasumatray

Student Name: Bhavesh M. Bhansali

Roll Number: 1313

Batch: MBA3

Date of Submission: 28th March, 2014

Assignment: Launching an online wedding

service

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Table of contents:

Sr. No Topics Page

No. 1 Executive Summary

3

2 Business Concept 4

3 New Category 5

4 Problem to be solved 6

5 Segmentation & Targeting 7

6 Current Competition 8

7 Customer’s Pain Points 8

8 Porter’s five forces model 9

9 Marketing Strategy – 4 Ps of Marketing Mix

11

10 Business Model Canvas 14

11 Action Plan – Phase-I and Phase-II

15

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Executive Summary

Starting a commercial website venture solely dedicated to wedding is a new

concept which will help busy brides, grooms, their family and friends to make

wedding an easy thing. At the time of wedding, there is a lot of chaos that goes

around the house for getting the contacts of Catering services, Wedding Halls,

designers, etc…That’s why the need of this portal arises. This Online wedding

portal will contain all the contact points and products that are required during

wedding. The site can be indexed by state or even city and be broken down into

subsections featuring every imaginable wedding-related product or service

including:

A directory of wedding photographers and videographers.

A directory of wedding singers, DJs and bands.

A directory of wedding planners and caterers.

A directory of formalwear and rentals for both men and women.

A directory of transport services.

A directory of best halls and open grounds for wedding.

Honeymoon packages and many more…

Site visitors would simply select the geographical area they live in, choose the

topic of interest, and start to view the listing and information. Anyone getting

married would be able to log onto the site to find a photographer, plan a

honeymoon and book a reception hall all with the click of a mouse.

This portal will also provide the visitors for products required during time such as

accessories, shoes, apparels, low to medium cost jewels, etc…

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Business Concept:

--build to make wedding easy

www.helpstowed.com

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New Category

Getting everything on a single click is one of the most preferable things that people

want. People are not able to schedule their wedding appointments, not able to

locate the caterers, designers, DJs, etc… because of their busy schedule and even

because of the lack of information. To make this things go easy,

www.helpstowed.com has emerged as a new category of profitable online

business. This new category of online business has a lot of potential to attract a

good number of people because, In India an upper middle class family normally

spends 30 lakh on a wedding. An average of 10 million (or 1 Crore) marriages take

place in India every year. Conservative average of wedding expenditure to be `3

lakh i.e, 3 trillion for weddings every year (Reference from

www.businesseconomics.in).

In India, marriages are a big event for the family, relatives and kids. People come

together during marriages, spending happens a lot from both bride and groom

sides. The places where spending happens and there are enormous opportunities in

those areas.

Spending

Brides and Grooms Dresses

Marriage Halls

Food

Flower Arrangements

Receptions (before or after marriage… usually happens during the evening)

Music bands or DJ

Giving all these things on a single click is actually a new category within

itself and has a lot of potential.

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Problem to be Solved

The basic problem is lack of time, hectic shopping on the floor, tension of

arranging the Caterers, DJs, Decorators, Wedding Halls, printing of Invitation

Cards, Looking for designers, etc…

In today’s world, no one has much time and the time require for arranging a

successful wedding is much more.

Planning the wedding is easy and stress-free with helpstowed.com. Use our

wedding directory to find wedding dresses, flowers, bridal gowns, bridesmaid

dresses and bouquets, reception venues, marriage celebrants, wedding cakes,

invitations, wedding photographers and more in one convenient location.

Busy Brides, Grooms and their family members finds it very difficult to get the

contacts of Caters, Decorators, DJs, Invitation printing companies, Designers,

etc… and these seems to be a problem for them as they don’t have much time to

get involved in finding these services for long hours. This problem has evolved as

a brainteaser for the couples and their family members. To get rid of this time

consuming problem, I am planning to develop an online portal for giving contacts

of wedding service providers and a lot of accessories needed during wedding time.

One can buy accessories required for wedding on helpstowed.com and on the same

time, can check the wedding service providers list according to their location.

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Segmentation

Geographic

Status

Metropolitan

Cities

Urban Areas Suburbs

Rich people High High Medium

Upper Middle

Class High High Medium

Middle Class Medium Medium Low

Lower Middle

Class Medium Low Low

Targeting

As per the segmentation suggest, www.helpstowed.com has a lot of potential in

metro and urban cities. Basically, www.helpstowed.com is targeting the mass

market.

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Current Competition

As I mentioned earlier, it is a new category of business. In India, there is no one

doing the business of providing online wedding services. But the competition is

actually an alternate solution that is, going directly to the service providers such as

caters and decorators without referring to www.helpstowed.com. The customers

have an option of directly contacting the service providers. The products which my

portal serves can also be bought through other stores, malls, etc… which also gives

a tough competition for revenue generation.

In UK, there is an online wedding service portal known as Onlinebride.com which

also provides the same solution which www.helpstowed .com provides. But

www.onlinebride.com is not a tough competition as it operates in UK and many

people are not aware of such website.

Event Management companies is yet an another competition for

www.helpstowed.com because if client hires the event managers to make their

wedding successful, the client will get all the require contacts from him and this

weakens the chances of the clients going through this website.

Customers Pain Points

In today’s busy environment, customers want chaos free wedding environment.

Their pain is to get the service providers without much searching for them. In the

season of weddings, the customers find it very difficult to get the good service

providers such as caters and decorators because they are pre-booked by some other

customers. When they do not get best caters and decorators, there is a lot of havoc

in the house. Best caters and decorators are very important for a successful

wedding because they both highlight the whole wedding and not getting them

easily creates stress in the minds of the family members.

Therefore www.helpstowed.com has emerged as a rescuer. I have developed this

site to help the clients to get these contacts on a single click and to build the

wedding memorable and happy.

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Porter’s five forces model

Threat of new entrants:

As it is a new category of business in India, the threat of new entrants in this

business is moderate because as it is a new emerging business, low competition is

not going to be a scenario and also it will take time to be a known business. That’s

why, threat of new entrants is moderate.

Bargaining power of buyers:

As we earn revenue through commission and advertisements, the bargaining

powers of buyers in high because the buyers get directly contacted to service

providers such as caters and all and they can bargain with them resulting in less

commission.

Intensity of Rivalry

Low

Threat of New

Entrants

Moderate

Bargaining power of Buyers

High

Threat of Substitutes

High

Bargaining power of Suppliers

Moderate

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Threat of Substitutes:

Since alternates are available with the clients to go directly to the service

providers, to buy wedding-related products directly from the shop. The threat to

substitutes is also high.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers:

Bargaining power of suppliers of wedding –related products is moderate because

medium amount of stock will be purchased or ordered.

Intensity of Rivalry:

Since there is no one doing this business, the intensity of competition is very low.

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Marketing Strategy – 4 Ps of Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix, a term coined by Neil Borden, are the ingredients that combine to

capture and promote a brand or product’s unique selling points, those that

differentiate it from its competitors.

The four Ps are:

Product

Price

Place

Promotion

As the website is new and awareness of the website is very important to generate

traffic and convert the clients into consumers, the Marketing Mix of

www.helpstowed.com is as:

Product

The product that www.helpstowed.com is serving is actually a service. An online

wedding service which no one at least in India provides. This service is new in its

own concept. This service helps customers to find the contacts of the required

service providers free and can also buy the products required during wedding on

this website.

This Online wedding portal will contain all the contact points and products that are

required during wedding. The site can be indexed by state or even city and be

broken down into subsections featuring every imaginable wedding-related product

or service including:

A directory of wedding photographers and videographers.

A directory of wedding singers, DJs and bands.

A directory of wedding planners and caterers.

A directory of formalwear and rentals for both men and women.

A directory of transport services.

A directory of best halls and open grounds for wedding.

Honeymoon packages and many more…

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Price

This service is free of charge for the customers. The amount will be charged from

the service providers whom the customers had broken from the website.

The Prices will be as such

Service providers (all category included akin Caters, Decorators, etc...)

(Chargeable when the service taken by customers is above 2 lakhs)

Amount (lakhs) Fees/ Commission

Below 2 Free

2-5 1%

5-10 1.5%

Above 10 2%

Prices for Advertisement (as the website is new rates are very reasonable)

Page wise Per month (RS) Quarterly(RS) Half Yearly(RS)

Home page top

left

2000 3500 6000

Home page top

right

2000 3500 6000

Home page left 1700 3000 5000

Home page Right 1700 3000 5000

Category top left 1400 2500 4500

Category top right 1400 2500 4500

Sub-category top

left

1200 2100 3800

Sub-category top

right

1200 2100 3800

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Place

Place is a universal place that is, online. It’s an online service.

Places from where you can access are:

Internet

Mobile phone applications

Call service- just like JUSTDIAL where you can get information of the

required service provider from your call operator.

Promotion

As it a new website, promotional measures are very important to get the required

traffic.

Print Media—Booking a quarter page in the leading newspapers like TOI,

DNA, etc… for a month that too in the wedding season.

Social Media Marketing--- Marketing of the website on Social media sites

such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Myspace, Wordpress, etc… on a

continuous basics in order to the get the attention of the millions of people

and the cost is negligible.

Marketing in Events and even Weddings- getting permission from the

wedding people to do the promotion of the website to get the required

traffic.

Posters- getting the space where traffic is more and is less expensive.

Paid ads at Google

Blogging once a week for gaining awareness.

Videos on YouTube for gaining popularity.

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Business Canvas Model of

www.helpstowed.com

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Action plan

I have divided the action plan for operating and marketing of

www.helpstowed.com into two phases.

Phase1: one year from the date of launching the website

Phase2: next 2 year plan.

Phase -1

Phase 1 is basically for getting the service contacts and convincing the service

providers to list their names on the website.

Spreading awareness through the promotional measures which I have mentioned

earlier.

Estimated Revenue for the first year

Time

duration

Estimated

traffic

(no. of visitors)

No of deals

with service

providers

Through

commissions

(RS)

Through

advertisements

(RS)

First

quarter

100 2 15000 5000

Second

quarter

250 5 25000 12000

Third

quarter

1000 20 100000 35000

Fourth

quarter

2500 35 150000 60000

As the website would newly launched , the traffic for the first quarter is estimated

to be just 100 visitors, cracking atleast 2 deals with the estimated revenue

generation through commission would be Rs. 15000 and through advertisements

Rs. 5000

The second quarter would have more visitors expecting to double the no. of

visitors with cracking 5 deals because of lot of promotional measures on

continuous basis. The estimated revenue through commission would be Rs. 25000

and through ads Rs. 12000.

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The third year and the fourth year will do much better with approx. 1000 and 2500

visitors respectively, and the estimated revenue as shown in the table.

Phase 2

The second phase is the plan of the next two years.

A substantial amount will be paid as the cost of promotional measures for reaching

to a larger number of people.

More methods to be adopted for promoting the website, generating more contacts

for helping and giving satisfaction to the customers.

Estimated revenue from Next two years

Time duration Estimated

traffic

(no. of

visitors)

No of deals

with service

providers

Through

commissions

(RS)

Through

advertisements

(RS)

Year 2 15000 200 1000000 150000

Year 3 40000 350 1500000 200000

Through a lot of promotional measures and awareness of the website, I have

estimated the amount of revenue in the second and third which is shown in the

above table.