How this Ahmedabad-based venture went from a beauty products review site to an on-demand wellness and beauty platform

In the past few years, there has been immense growth in the beauty and wellness industry in the country, which has been followed by the growth of technology platforms around it. Ahmedabad-based Skinsecrets.in is one such technology platform, catering to the wellness and beauty industry.

In late 2012, Skinsecrets, founded by Tejash Mehta, was launched as a review platform for skin and cosmetics products. In 2014, after the website had been successfully running for two years, the venture recruited another co-founder. The idea had grown big by then, and the two co-founders, Tejash and Dhaval Shah, decided to pivot, from being a product review site to entering the beauty and wellness services and products segment. Now, the platform also helps consumers get exclusive offers, book online appointments, write reviews of service providers etc.

“We are reducing cash leakage, a major problem faced by our service provider partners, through technology. Besides, we are offering cost-effective targeted demand generation solutions,” says Tejash, Co-founder, Skinsecrets.

He adds that this is one of the biggest and most unorganised segments. With the use of technology, he’s trying to organize the sector to a greater extent. “Along with this, we will be able to solve the cash leakage issue faced by vendors, and consumers will be able to choose from a wide range of exclusive discount offers.”

The venture has spent around Rs 15 lakh till now, mostly on team-building and product development. The platform claims to have over 2600 service providers on-board. It’s working with O2 spa, Ganga spa, Lakmé, and other big players in the segment. It claims that in the next six months, it will have 25000 service providers on-board, offering services across the beauty and wellness segment.

Talking about the business model, Tejash says, “We work on a commission basis with our service providers.” The venture charges a percentage of commission from its service providers on appointments booked via its platform and the various promotional activities it does for them. Currently, it’s more focused on increasing customer traction.

The platform is in the pre-revenue stage right now. To date, it has had 68000 visitors and 242,000 page views on its website. It claims to have done a good job till now, in terms of product development, vendor acquisition, and user acquisition, and is now looking to raise funds to grow at fast pace.

“The growth in the beauty and wellness segment is tremendous, and technology has played a big role in the same. We already have new categories lined up, that can fire our growth in revenue and better our position in market,” says Tejash.

On the product roadmap, the venture is on the Android platform and is targetting launching an iOS app as soon as possible. Besides, it has also planned lots of enhancements for its mobile app and website, which will be its major focus areas.

“We have also identified new categories we could integrate, keeping our beauty and wellness theme in mind. So we are very clear on what we want to achieve and how we are going to achieve it,” says Tejash.

Growing market and rising competition

According to the KPMG wellness report, the beauty and wellness market in India in 2012-13 was estimated to be around Rs 41,224 crores, and is expected to touch Rs 80,370 crores in 2017-18.

SkinSecrets faces indirect competition from companies like Groupon and Justdial etc., which also sell deals and offers for beauty and wellness segment.

Besides, the venture faces direct competition from players like ManageMySpa, Purplle.com, Ziffi.com, Vyomo, Hyve etc.

Recently, these ventures have also raised categories of funding from different investors. In July, ManageMySpa raised a Series A funding round of USD 6 million, led by Accel Partners. This month, on-demand salon and beauty platform Vyomo secures around $2M funding from Rocket Internet. Last year, Mumbai-based online booking platform Ziffi raises Rs 15 crore from Orios Venture Partners.

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