Gurgaon-based Makeoverz looks to give a ‘face lift’ to the beauty and wellness sector in India

The beauty and wellness market in India is estimated to be around USD 4.8 billion and growing. Traditionally in the past, people used to rely on word of mouth recommendations to decide which spa they should visit or which salon provided the best service for specific treatments, in a particular locality. Technology has now made it easier to solve this pain point of discoverability for both consumers and service providers.

The Makeoverz is an on-demand marketplace that provides information about salons, spas, makeup artists, skin centres, gyms, fitness studios, personal trainers, and dieticians. Their current operational areas include Delhi, Greater Noida, Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad, and Ghaziabad. In addition to booking services, the startup provides customers a platform to discover essential information, express their views and provide ratings, and feedback to service providers and other customers.

Story so far

The Makeoverz was launched in March 2014 by Kamal Gulati. He initially ran the startup with part-timers seeding the platform organically and sourcing relevant information. After building a strong base over time he officially set up an office with full-time employees in January 2015. As the founder and director, Kamal’s main role has been to establish a long-term strategy, secure the necessary human and financial resources, set the company culture, and maintain team morale. With a lean team of less than 10 full-time employees the startup caters to all aspects of their business.

Ambuj Rawat functions as the search engine optimisation (SEO) manager and is responsible for coordinating and implementing SEO and social media optimisation (SMO) strategies for clients. As the client relationship manager, Nitika Bawa maintains the company’s relationships with the merchants and updates data for existing clients, as well as pursues new clientele opportunities.

As a customer service representative, Kuldeep Kaur directly interacts with both existing and future customers to understand their needs and helps the startup expand their user base. To help them reach out to possible clients through multiple sources, The Makeoverz regularly updates their blog with relevant information and articles related to beauty and fitness. Tanya Sharma currently looks after this aspect.

Verified and up-to-date data forms the cornerstone for the business and this is looked after by their in-house data team. Ankur Soni along with three recent joiness visits all the sites to fact check and collect relevant information that is updated on their platform. Talking about their growth, Kamal added, "The Makeoverz had an average of 80 users per day visiting the platform in January 2015. It has now reached to about 500 per day and out of that we have about 100 users booking appointments and services through our platform everyday. We aim to become Google for user's beauty and fitness needs.”

Out of all their offerings, currently salons and spas are their most in-demand category driving the highest traffic and conversions. The Makeoverz relies on social media, word of mouth, and organic reach through SEO to reach out to their customers. To cater to all their incoming queries they have integrated their listed contact number with Knowlarity’s services and have onboarded Zopim for their chat plugin.

The startup currently generates revenue through paid and premium listings and in the near future plan to monetise their featured section by providing more prominent listings to those interested. For their payment gateway, The Makeoverz has integrated with PayU money.

Sector overview

With rising per capita income and people leading more hectic and stress filled lives, the on-demand beauty and wellness sector has many takers in India. For individuals who travel to different cities regularly, discovering reliable salons, spas, or other services quickly is generally a challenge.

Beauty and grooming e-commerce platform Purplle had raised over $5 million in its Series A round from IvyCap Ventures in January 2015, while Nykka raised $3.4 million through private investors, including HNIs and NRIs to boost the expansion plans. Then there is YouWeCan ventures backed Vyomo which recently launched their mobile app. The Makeoverz also competes with players like VanityCube, Bulbul, Play n live, and BigStylist in the on-demand beauty and wellness space.

Future plans

The Makeoverz plans to add more service categories on their platform such as niche home services, including on-demand haircuts at the customer's residence. Presently, about 70% of their bookings are through their website, while the remaining 30% are from their mobile website. A mobile app is currently in the pipeline for early next year. The Makeoverz also plans to expand to other major cities in the country and are currently in the process of raising a round of funding to accelerate their growth.

Website: TheMakeoverz