How this startup helps small salons digitise their businesses through its SaaS platform

With the rise in awareness about holistic wellbeing among people in India, spending on beauty and wellness products and services has increased.

According to the Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association (IBHA), the beauty and wellness market in India is expected to reach Rs 2,463.49 billion by 2024, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~18.40 percent during the 2019-2024 period.

However, as compared to large salon brands, small chains or standalone parlours lose out on repeat customer engagement because they do not have data regarding their customers' preferences, visit patterns, and sometimes even catchment areas. 

Bengaluru-headquartered Glamplus aims to address this pain point with a ready-to-use SaaS platform in the beauty and wellness space so that small businesses in this segment can tap into their smartphone-savvy customer base with an easy-to-use customer management solution. 

Born during the pandemic in July 2020, Glamplus is the brainchild of a young team of founders — Divyanshu Kumar Singh (32), Rohan Singh (30), and Vatsalya Agarwal ( 29). 

“Our digital solution helps salons operating in the unorganised sector with credible data to make more informed decisions about their services, pricing and even manage their personnel distribution better,” says Rohan, who is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Glamplus.

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Digitising salons and spas

With digitisation, Glamplus is helping salon owners improve their customer experience. Available as a web version and on Android, Glamplus’s SaaS platform helps salon managers with everything from day-to-day billings to staff management to expenses. The platform also helps salons issue digital invoices. 

“For future booking or for any queries, customers can even interact with the salon’s WhatsApp chatbot,” adds Rohan.

Additionally, the platform also offers analytics reporting which helps shop owners monitor monetary health, staff productivity and more. 

Divyanshu, Rohan, and Vatsalya have known each other for the last five years. Divyanshu, who is the CEO of the company, has previously worked with various startups including Pagarbook, Bounce, Ninjacart and Ola.  

Rohan has worked with Transln Logistics and Blackbuck prior to Glamplus. Vatsalya, the CTO, has earlier worked in Quotient Technology, Navya Networks, and Cubito as a full stack developer, and has been a part of core teams to develop products from scratch.  

With a team size of 20+, Glamplus aims to move the $200 billion SMB-dominated offline economy to a data-driven engagement platform.

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Business model and revenue

Started as a B2B SaaS platform for salons and spas, the startup has now entered the B2B2C model by selling beauty products to salons.

Glamplus has tied up with multiple companies including Berdo, Mamaearth, L'Oreal Matrix and many more. 

“We have become a single platform from where salon owners can order from multiple brands through the app. We supply all the products and give the salons good margins on them because we are directly tied up with the companies and procure directly from the manufacturer,” adds Rohan.

In terms of subscription models, the platform has a 7-day free trial and three-month, six-month, one-year, and multi-year packages ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 5,000.

The startup also runs promotional campaigns through WhatsApp for member salons at $50 to retain and attract more customers.

Glamplus claims to have more than 20K B2B2C customers on its platform, and 1,000+ paying partners from the B2B space, besides growing 3x month-on-month.

Realising that salon partners have specific needs, mostly professional products, Glamplus has extended its service to modern trade centres like Spencer, Big Bazaar, shopping malls, and medical stores. 

“We are supplying personal care products to these brands. Keeping all these channels open-ended, we are increasing our revenue at a very fast rate,” claims Rohan.

Currently, at an ARR of Rs 1 crore, the startup plans to hit an ARR of Rs 3 crore in the next six months.  

COVID-19 impact

Considering the startup was launched in the pandemic year when most of the salons remained shut, Rohan says the early days were not very easy.

However, once salons started functioning as usual, many of them chose to adopt digitisation in their everyday business to attract customers to the pre-pandemic levels.

“The salon industry has been badly impacted by the ongoing pandemic. However, it has also triggered a need to adopt digital solutions fast to save costs and allocate their current resources better,” he adds. 

He claims business owners were happy to adopt Glamplus once they saw how easy it was to track daily revenue and data in the app. “Our software is also comparatively better priced,” he adds. 

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Funding and road ahead

In May 2021, the startup had raised $400K in a Pre Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures. To bootstrap and build the initial technology, the founders collectively put in Rs 10 lakh from their savings.

The beauty and wellness market is growing 15 percent y-o-y, and is currently estimated to be close to $200 billion. Besides the Indian market, the startup aims to tap 30 percent of the Southeast Asian salon business too, which is estimated to have close to 10 million salons. 

Zenoti, MioSalon, and Easy Salon are some of the bigger players operating in this space but mostly abroad, says Rohan.

Currently present in Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, the startup plans to expand to Southeast Asian countries by the year-end.

Glamplus has a warehouse in Noida, and plans to open another in the South soon, from where they can supply their B2B products.

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