Effects Of Gender And Physical Attractiveness On The Indian Matchmaking Industry

Market Statistics of Indian Matchmaking Industry

Discuss about the Effects of Gender and Physical Attractiveness.

Srivasna is a matchmaking agency based in Bangalore, India. Indian market is excellent for match making business. The size of match-making business is 130 million us dollars.  The business will also have an online portal for providing its match making services. Earlier in India marriages were mostly arranged where parents used to select the potential partner for their children. Today scenario has completely changed Indians prefer to choose their potential partners either by themselves or through match making agents. Match making agencies existed in India from a very long time but with advancement of modern information technology, the ways of business has changed. Match making agencies today provides online portals for finding potential partners. This is the reason that this market has grown in recent times.

In its latest publication, which was based on Indian Wedding Market Outlook to 2020-Focus on Online Matchmaking Ken Research reported about the matching making market of India. The report gives all the required information about the market size of the online matchmaking market, segmentation by online match making and offline matchmaking services.

The Indian matchmaking market has grown in recent years this was after the online match making market was on increase. Domestic factors like increase in number of subscriptions and the freedom to choose one’s partner has resulted in the growth of the match making business. Major players in the match making industry are Shaadi.com and Bharat matrimony. Both these business provide online matchmaking services. In the year 2010-2015 the income growth of the match making industry was 21 percent. The report suggests that the matchmaking business will increase by 20.6 billion INR by 2020. The reason behind the growth of revenue of this market are, advancement of technology, like internet, rise in the personal disposable income, lower pricing packages, increase in the number of matchmaking sites that offer a variety of services. India is second most populated country after China. The total population of the country is 1,324,171,354. By 2022, it is expected that India will become one of the most populated country in the world. As per the age distribution of the country, almost 40 percent of the population falls between the age group of 25 to 54. The GDP growth of India is 5.7 percent (Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie 2013).

The size present of the online matchmaking market in India is approximately USD 130 million. It has been forecasted that there would be a increase in the revenue by USD 206 million, representing a CAGR of 16 percent. Online dating market size, % Population, billion 3.25% 16.67% 83.33% 96.75%. India represents around 17 percent of the global population, however, India’s market size is represented as only 3.25 percent of the global market. This difference represents a huge opportunity for upcoming and current players in India. The US with a market size of USD 2000 million has the largest size of the market. Even though US is mature market, it is growing at a rate of 12 15 percent. Thus, India being a developing market, industry sources predict a growth of 15 20 percent in the coming years. According to industry sources, India and UK have witnessed a steep rise in the popularity of online dating. Currently only 6 million people use online dating services in India, as per the report of StepOut.com. By 2015, the number is estimated to rise to 115 million, a CAGR of 167 percent (Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie 2013).    The online matrimony market is valued at INR 510 crore and is growing around at a rate of 30% per year, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India ((Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie 2013)

Age wise Distribution of Indian Population

The overall online matrimony market has around 35 to 40 million registered profiles. 20 to 40 percent of profiles are registered on behalf of singles by their parents, relatives and friends.

93 percent of the revenues of a matrimonial site come from subscribers, while the remainder comes from the advertisements. The average time between profile upload and marriage is 3 months. The margins in this industry are very high ranging from 50 to 70 percent (Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie2013)

Above is the chart of the age wise population distribution of India in which it is clearly shown that the youth population in India is very high and the target market for the matchmaking business is of the youth falling between the age group of 24 to 35 years. The average age of India is 35 yrs and is expected to be 29 by 2020 (Prasad, and Sita Mishra 2014).

The companies that are market leaders in this industry are, Shadi.com, Bharat Matrimony and Jeevan Sathi.com. Apart from Shadi.com, Bharat Matrimony and Jeevan Saathi.com, Face book also acts as one of the major threats of the company. Facebook since its launch in 2004 became popular among the young people and became a successful business in a very short span. According to the data of 2017, there are 194.11 million users of face and the number of users has been increasing. Though facebook is a social networking site it also serves as a platform where one can meet with new people and develop friendship, even many people have found potential partners from facebook. In India most one of the reasons behind using facebook is finding their potential partners, it serves as a platform where one can know new people. The only difference is that facebook is not an official matchmaking site but people those who are not outgoing prefer find potential partner using dating and social networking sites. One reason for facebook being so popular is that using facebook is free, there are no charges for browsing through the profile of people and contacting them but in most of the online matchmaking services one has to pay additional charges for browsing through the profile of the people who are premium members.

Srivasna is an organization that would provide matchmaking services in India, the target customers of the company are young, single male and female between the age group of 25-45. Recently it has been seen that the there was an increase in the wedding industry of India, all because of the internet intervention, now matchmaking has has very easy, people needs to register in the online portals and the agency will find a suitable partner based on the preferences of the customers. Based on the same concept Srivasna will offer matchmaking services with the help of its online portal where people will have to register and make their profiles, giving their details, family background, physical stats, educational and professional details so that Srivasna would find them suitable match as per their preferences. India is a country where people of different religion and culture live. Religion and caste are considered during marriages (Prasad, and Sita Mishra 2014).

Market Leaders in the Indian Matchmaking Industry

The preceding table shows the religion and caste wise distribution. Cultural diversity of India provides gives makes the business strategize accordingly. It is the trend in the industry to categorize the profiles as per the caste and religions. Indians generally prefer marriage within their community although there are people who are not caste specific, there are companies that provides matrimonial service only for specific communities for example Jain matrimonial or Parsi Matrimonial, this is mostly seen in case of minorities ((Prasad and Sita Mishra 2014).

As per the recent trend, it has been seen that Indians now look of their potential partners mostly through the matchmaking services. The traditional method where relatives where the main source for finding potential partner is not much used now the young people of this generation prefer to find partners themselves often use matchmaking portals. Working class do not have much time to visit the matchmaking offices so they generally prefer to online portals. Present scenario and the recent trends provide favorable circumstances of Srivasna to do business. This also shows the wide scope Srivasna has in this industry. 

The USP of Srivasna is that it would have both online and offline services for customers who prefer online services and for those customers who are not comfortable using the online services and sharing information online.

Another usp of the company is that the premium membership charge is comparatively lower than the competitors.

The privacy policies of company are stricter than its competitors. 

For understanding the external environment of the company Porter’s five forces analysis is the most important tool. This will give the complete detailed information about the forces that affect the business of the company externally (Kim et al. 2014).

External threats often harm the business and every business needs to do external environment analysis so that it can

Threat of new entrants- New companies keeps entering the industry that that poses a great deal of threat to Srivasna. Ever since the internet access has become cheaper many people prefer the online matchmaking services, this has led to the increase of new companies entering the industry and poses threat to the existing companies. Whenever new companies enter the market it grabs the attention of customers, increases the competition. Generally the new companies when they enter the market they do in-depth research where they focus on the weakness in the strategies of the existing companies and make its USP. Some of the new entrants that imitate the strategies of the existing company and by offering the similar services at slightly cheaper rates, this makes customers change their existing service providers.

Srivasna - A Matchmaking Agency in India

Industry rivalry- The main competitors of Srivasna is Shadi.com, Jeevansathi.com and Bharat matrimony. These companies are older and so they have successfully created a customer base. Srivasna faces a great deal of competition from these companies. All the three companies are presently the market leaders.

Bargaining power of buyers-, Bargaining power of the buyers affects the business to a great deal. Buyers often compel the business to allow certain discounts to the customers. A discount allowed to the customers puts the company at loss. Providing services at cheaper rates is also the bargaining power of buyers. Allowing discounts is also important because if the companies do not allow discount or cheaper rates then chances are that the customers would switch to other service providers. The immense competition is the reason that makes the companies to give discounts on the services as the customers put a lot of pressure on the companies known as the bargaining power of the customers (Thamizhvanan, Arun and Xavier 2013).  

Bargaining power of suppliers- The main resources of the company are computers, internet connection, telecommunication system and human resources. Business organizations often need to negotiate with the suppliers for resources. Often the supplies are not being purchased at a desirable price that the customers want and hence they have to agree to the price that the supplier is ready to give at. This happens because the companies do not want to lose their loyal suppliers; it is very difficult to build trust with any new supplier because any company cannot simply trust the new suppliers. Srivasna also needs trustworthy suppliers for doing business so often they have to compromise at some points.

Threat of substitutes- Substitutes also affect the business, when the main product or service are available to the customers at a higher price, they look for alternative sources or can be said substitutes. The substitute of Srivasna is dating sites like tinder and social networking sites like facebook. In most of the cases people have found their potential partners through the dating sites or social networking sites especially facebook because, the access to this sites are free and people can make new acquaintances and even get great deal of information from these sites. There are many people who do not use matrimonial sites and rather prefer dating sites when it comes choosing a potential partner. Therefore, it can be said that many potential customers of the company are actually using the substitutes and in this case it is even beneficial for them so the threat is too much (Kim et al. 2014).

The external threats are not in control of the company but certain measures can be taken to deal with the external threats posed. The company will implement strategies and increase its internal capabilities. For the threats company faces from its competitors it will have to make effective promotional and advertisement strategies so that it can create awareness about its business, this will help increasing the customer base of the company.

Word of mouth would be the most efficient strategy that the company can use to promote and advertise its company. Additional consulting services will also help increasing the customer base. It is not possible for the company to eradicate the competition from the rivals, instead the company can take measures to increase their customer base and reduce the competition to some extent (Kim et al. 2014).

Privacy issues- For combating the problem of privacy and fraud related issues the company will makes its privacy policy stricter. While registering to the online portal the company the users will have to provide a number of details about themselves. The will have to agree to the privacy policy which would strictly mention that fake and fraud profile of candidates will be legally punished as the company will report to the cyber cell in such cases.

Online portal- The online portal of the company helps in attracting the customers because it becomes easier for the customers of the company to browse through the website and look for the potential partner. By paying the premium prices they can become the premium member, this facility lets the customers contact the person they want to know more.

Reasonable price- The price of the company is very reasonable and comparatively more than the charges the competitors take. This has helped company to gain a competitive advantage. The premium charges of the company are inr 2000 for a year.

Memberships- There are around 4000 profiles that the online portal has, this are from people all over India. The number of users of Srivasna helps the customers choose the company, because they get as many users as they want. There are around 500 offline members.

Human resource capabilities- The customer service provided to the customers is very efficient as the people who visit for offline membership gets convinced and prefer to use Srivasna over other companies.

Privacy of the user accounts- The Company ensures that privacy of the accounts of all the users are maintained. The profiles of the candidates are only shown to the premium members and not to anyone. There have been many frauds that is why the company does not allow free registrations. The online portal charges 500 INR for registration and for membership there are various packages, this makes the company’s objective very clear than only people who genuinely want to search a prospective partner can make profiles. Keeping in mind that the information provided in the profiles of the customers are very personal, the address and the contact number of the employees are not revealed generally.

New in this industry-, The Company is not old enough to be able to gain a good market share. The business will take time to develop and grow. A number of strategies will be needed to be taken so that the business flourishes.  

Less members- Another weakness of the company is that the number of members of the online and the offline services are very less. For the business to be successful, more customers are required.

Improper advertisement strategies- The Company is not implementing proper strategies for advertising and promotion. One of the reasons of less number of members is that many people are not well aware about the company. The company’s advertising strategies are not effective and have failed to create interest among the general public (Srivastava and Bajpai 2016).

Expansion- Srivasnaa can expand its business in other cities as well. The offline services of Srivasna are presently available to people of Bangalore. Opening offices in other cities of other states will help the company expand their business.

Merger- Another opportunity the company is looking forward to is merging with the social networking site facebook. If company merges with facebook then it will get many clients because Srivasna would be promoted and the business will grow.

Partnerships- Srivasna has decided that it would partner with company who provide wedding planning services and other marriage consulting services. Pre-marriage consulting services are services that guide the people about marriages, and how to manage personal and professional lives after marriages. Based on the testimonials of the people who will finds their potential partner from the dating sites the company will offer this services at a very reasonable rate (Seidman 2017).

Competition- There is too much competition in this industry and the company faces threats from companies like Shadi.com, Jeevansathi.com and Bharat Matrimony. All these companies are quite old and hence have many members who have taken the annual subscriptions. The word of mouth advertisements of the existing companies often tend to bring more customers that are new to the same business.

Fraud- There are many cases where frauds have been reported. People make fake profiles and access a great deal of information of other genuine users, sometimes the fake users also pay the charges for premium membership, later cases of fraud, harassment and stalking are reported. This puts the life of the users and the reputation of the company at risk (Ryals and Lynette 2014).

Privacy issues- It is in itself a risk to put one’s personal information online so most of the people face this threat.

Substitutes- Dating sites and social networking sites unintentionally does the matchmaking, as they serve as platform where new people can meet and in some cases they even marry each other. These sites are free and many potential customers of Srivasna are using other dating sites and facebook.

Legal obligation- There are cases when the frauds are so severe that victim seeks legal help and in those cases even the company is held responsible and the image of the company is at risk.

• To focus on doing sustainable business
• Increasing the operational efficiency of the services by 60 percent in the next two years
• Making the privacy policies more strict
• Reducing the number of fake profiles
• Statement of key strategy of the company

“Our business will increase its operational efficiency by 60 percent in the next two years so that it can focus on business growth”

For increasing the internal efficiency in its operations the company has decided to that it will hire more employees to scrutinize the profiles of the users in online portals. The employees will see that which users are are active and which are inactive. After the six months of registration, the users will have to pay additional inr 200 for availing the services. This step will be taken because Srivasna is clear about its privacy objectives. It wants to grow its business by not just increasing customers but also increasing the efficiency of the company (Sahoo 2017).

Marriages in India are very sacred issue, therefore the employees who would be dealing with the offline customers of the company will be trained properly so that they convince the customers that Srivasna will be providing them the right match and they can rely on the company. Srivasna before suggesting any match to the candidate will scrutinize and the profile and investigate about the candidate so that there is no mismatch or fraud with the candidate (Kauppinen-Räisänen, Hannele and Christian Grönroos 2015).

The profiles of each of the users will have all required information, apart from personal and professional information each user on their online profiles will have to give few important information, that will be related to the lifestyle and habits of the candidates. For instance the candidates will have tom answer questions like, whether they have drinking pr smoking habits or not. This will be done because many people prefer partners who do not drink or smoke. The users will have to give information about their health conditions in case they are suffering from any chronic health conditions. The motive behind this is to make sure that the candidate select their match after knowing all the important information so that later they do not regret or complain about miscommunication (Prasad and Mishra 2014).  

Political- The political scenario of India is different from other countries, it is considered as the largest democracy and there are many political parties. Most of the parties generally do politics based on caste and religious issues. Some of the parties fight for issues like inters caste marriages. Online matchmaking portals allow the candidates to choose their partners themselves and caste and religion is mere individual choice. This might create problem because inter caste marriages are on rise ever since the technology has developed and online matchmaking portals came into existence (Seidman Gwendolyn, and Olivia 2013).

Economic- The income of the middle class have increased, the disposable income of upper middle class and the middle class have increased, paying inr 2000 yearly as premium membership is not a big deal so candidates can easily become premium members. This is favorable of Srivasna (Grönroos, Christian and Päivi Voima 2013).

Social- There are many castes and sub-castes in India, these castes and sub-castes are the basis of marriages in India. So it becomes difficult to classify the accounts of the candidates caste wise. There are still many people prefer marriages through the traditional ways of telling relatives to find suitable partners and are strictly against the idea of their children finding matches online or own their own. This is one of the social challenges that is faced by Srivasna (Brem et al. 2015).

Technological- One of the positive impact of technology for matchmaking services is that it facilitates browsing through online profiles of other user and directly contact the individual one is interested to know. One of the negative impact of technology is that cases of online fraud and harassment have increased and it often puts the sites under legal obligation for not maintain privacy of the profiles of the candidates. In such scenario, the whole idea of matchmaking services gets a lot of criticism.

Legal- A number of legal considerations is required while starting online matchmaking services. It applies for offline services as well. Cyber crimes through matchmaking online services and frauds are often reported. In many cases, frauds are detected after marriages the company is sued and have to fight legal battles (Achroll and Philip Kotler 2014).

Most of the macro-economic factors are not in control of the company but still the company can make its privacy policies strict and take the help of cyber cells to reduce the number of online harassment cases and fraud cases. Taking police help for suspicious activities online will reduce severe crimes. The company will take full responsibility of fraud cases if it occurs and cooperate in the police proceedings so that it can help the victim (Miquel-Romero et al. 2014).

The main resources that are required by the company for doing business are, computer systems, internet connection, and infrastructure to setup the office. Total revenue required for starting up the business would be inr 12 lakhs. 50 percent of the total cost of the business will be  allocated by owners capita. 25 percent of funds will be raised from commercial banks, the company has applied loan of inr 3 lakhs loan from IDBI bank. 25 percent of the fund will be raised through venture capitalists or investors. Representatives from the company have approached few investors to discuss the venture. The operating costs have been estimated as inr 6,00000. The performance target of the company will be to increase sales of their business by 35 percent in the next one year. An yearly growth in sales of 35 percent will ensure positive cashflows and in the next five years it can strategize to merge with facebook (Chandrakala and Susheela Devi 2013).

The target customers of the company are young people of the age group 25-45 years. The company will use the integrated marketing communication tools to attract potential customers.

Advertising- It is one of the most important tool that is used to communicate the value of the services to the target audience of the company. The company will use print media, electronic media, outdoor media and outdoor media for advertising.

News papers- Under print media Srivasna will use newspapers like, Times of India, Hindustan times, Deccan Herald and Vijaya Karnataka.

Magazines- Magzines like The week, India today, Yashanga and Meri Saheli would be used for advertisements in newspapers (Challagalla et al. 2015).

Brochures- Srivasna will be designing a brochure for distribution to the potential customers. The brochure will contain all the detailed information about the business and the services that are provided to the customers.

Televisions- The advertisements of the company would be featured in the television channels. Only one television channel would be selected because the cost of television advertisements would be too much for any new business. The advertisements will be aired mostly during the prime time targeting maximum number of customers.

Radio- Red Indigo and Radio Mirchi of Bengalure would be selected for doing advertisements about the matchmaking services.

Web banners- Web banners will be used for online advertising. Web banners will be designed with bright colors and high definition graphics so that its grabs the attention of the candidates.

Facebook- Advertisings would be done on facebook with which Srivasna is planning to merge.

Other social media platforms that would be used for advertising will be Instagram, Twitter and Linked-in.

As a tool for outdoor media the company has planned to use billboards, in some of the busiest streets of Bangalore billboards will be used for advertising. Flyers would be distributed in some of the busiest streets, market and public places of Bangalore.

Personal selling- The company will provide training to its employees so that they can efficiently deal with the clients who would come to the office for registration. Customer service will be given utmost importance and so employees will be trained to be polite and convincing so that they can win the trust of the company.

In direct marketing, the company will make cold calls to the potential customers.

Public relation- For public relation the company will be allocating a large sum of its budget. The various activities that would be carried out for building public relation are

Press releases- Srivasna will use Times of India for all its press releases.

Audio releases- Radio channel Red FM of Bangalore would be used for all the audio releases of the company.

Public events- For public events flash mobs in two of malls of the city

Sponsorships- The Company will sponsor a musical concert that will be held in winter and another event that will be sponsored is a cultural program that will also be held in winter.

The company will expand its business by opening offices in other states and cities of India. The online services will be for whole India but the offline services will be available in the entire country in next five years. One of the most important growth strategies of the company is to merge with facebook, because is a social networking site and merging with famous social networking site will help in increasing the customer base of the company, which one of the goals of the company (Usha Rani 2013).

Conclusion

Srivasna hopes in future to have a business growth of 35 percent as it is calculated that the business will have payback period of 3 years. It has made a business plan to merge with facebook. Merging with facebook will provide the business with great opportunities as the business will grow more, facebook is a popular social networking site with 194.11 million users and it is expected to go up by 262 million. Association with facebook will have many benefits, the business will grow and have increased customer base. The company will be promoted through this action and many people will know about the business. It will also help the business to expand its offline matchmaking business in other cities of other states as well. The business plan is aimed at attracting potential investors. As of the 50 percent of the capital will be raised externally and 50 percent will be the owner’s capital. 25 percent of the total capital, inr 3 lakhs will be raised from investors and 25 percent of total capital, 3 lakhs will be raised from bank, IDBI bank. Attracting the potential investors would be a major challenge though.

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