Shaadi.com is one of the most preferred matrimonial sites.... What is the secret behind the success?

In Shaadi.com we have been constantly innovating ourselves from the last decade. It is our constant endeavor to enhance our services by introducing features such as smart search, AstroSoulMate Search, AstroSoulMate Match, Shaadi messenger, Multiple photos, Video club, Shaadi Seal, amongst the many others and the latest addition is professional search to find a life partner from a particular profession. People Interactive, a People Group company and owner of Shaadi.com has been awarded with the Red Herring 100 Asia Award for its unique entrepreneurial and highly innovative ideas. It also received CNBC- TV 18’s Emerging India Award for the most promising SME and also has been awarded with Deloitte Fast 50 India Award. Our special 24 X 7 customer care division, which is accessible to our customers round the clock, helps us to understand our customers better and improve on a regular basis. The feedback given by our customers is valued and implemented to enhance the services.

In this era, when more and more people are opting for free mixing and the youths preferring to choose their life partners on their own, why do you think people are opting for matrimonial sites?

Due to social factors such as maximum number of nuclear families and people moving away from the cities of birth for better careers, more and more youth of today opt for online matrimonial services. Shaadi.com makes available wider choice of profiles without any geographical limitations. In online matrimonial services, detailed profiles of the members unlike one-liners in newspapers etc and multiple photo options are available. Through Shaadi messenger they can interact and get to know more about each other before taking their next step.

How did you come up with the idea of Shaadi.com

As our Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Mittal explains it was a chance encounter with a marriage broker that actually led to this idea.

When he first started web a development company in 1997, he was clear about the long-term direction the company should take. He wanted to be in the consumer Internet business and develop few brands in the industry. As he thought about the vertical we should first target, he came across a professional matchmaker in India. The business model of the matchmaker intrigued him and he drilled down further to realise that basically this matchmaker went from door to door within his community, and to people he knew and carried ‘resumes’ with him. Essentially, the choice of a life partner was determined by how far the matchmaker could travel and how much weight he could carry. He wondered what would happen if we take away the spatial and geographical limitations by putting up profiles on the Internet. The rest, as they say is history. Today Shaadi.com has over 10 million members and 801,764 success stories. A pioneer in the Internet space in India, Shaadi.com is today a brand to reckon with.

Do you keep a tap on the success of marriages made on websites?

Shaadi.com has over 801,764 successful marriages. As per our experience for every one person who comes back and tells us about meeting his/her match through Shaadi.com, there are at least seven of them who do not come back to tell us about their success story.

With a number of major players in the field, what do you think about the competition?

We are the innovators in our sphere. In the last 10 years we have seen a few 100 companies which come and go, only a few have been able to sustain themselves. Shaadi.com has been the leading online matrimonial service due to our customer centric approach.

Do you have any kind of counseling session for prospective brides and grooms who register with you?

Shaadi.com being an online version of finding your soul mate, we don’t provide such a service. This is available in Shaaditimes.com a group company portal which is related to relationships and wedding planning. Here counseling on various topics such as legal issues, love, relationship, culture, immigration wedding planning etc related to marriage are provided by the experts from the relevant industry on a regular basis.