IMStylish Owner Scripting New Portal, Aims To Bring E-com, Social Networking & Entertainment On One Platform

Two-and-half-year old, Blue Digital Media Pvt Ltd, a digital marketing company (which started lifestyle ecom site IMStylish is set to launch a new youth-centric portal that would seek to gel entertainment and daily shopping needs with social interaction, all on one platform. Targeting an audience aged 15-25, the new site is slated to go live by May 20 and will have a mix of offering.

Talking to Techcircle.in, Gaurav Singhal, co-founder, Blue Digital Media Pvt Ltd, said, "It will not exactly be an ecommerce portal, but a mixture of various elements. The platform will help one interact with friends, buy stuff and also play games."

The product will be rolled out in three phases beginning with mobile, datacard/internet and DTH recharge, where consumers can earn points which can later be redeemed for goodies. The second phase will comprise selling rail and air tickets besides products like mobile & related accessories. In the final phase, it would build the social connectivity element where users can make friends and also play games using Facebook as a platform.

A three member team has been deployed for the project. The whole project will take a minimum of six months to be fully operational. But how can it make its presence felt against established firms in specialized verticals (Paytm, Freecharge & Others for recharge besides MakeMyTrip, Yatra & Others in the OTA space?

"It will all be a marketing game," according to Singhal.

We will have to wait for the product to go live to make an informed judgement, but the blueprint looks like a mixed bag.

Right now a team of 20, Blue Digital intends to hire more people to triple its employee strength by end of 2012. Aiming at a revenue of Rs 20 crore by end of this fiscal, the firm plans to break even by end 2013.

Singhal said, "The numbers will change though, if we raise fund and start scaling up."

Right now, a self-funded company, Blue Digital was founded by Gaurav Singhal and Sachin Kumar in late 2009. A BCA from Institute of Management & Research, Singhal has previously worked with Value One, Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd and Quasar Media, a part of WPP Group. An MCA from Meerut Institute Of Engineering  & Technology, Kumar has worked with SmartBuzz, Xicom Technologies and Valueonweb.

Blue Digital which also runs a digital marketing agency mainly specialises in paid search and digital marketing consultancy with clients in areas like finance, retail, travel, IT, education across geographies. Besides this, Blue Digital also recently started an incubation centre in Noida, to help startups in business plan, marketing strategy etc.

IMStylish:

The lifestyle e-tailer which started with 200 products, now handles around 5,000 SKUs with an average order value of Rs 700. It is looking to expand its product range by another 15,000 items. "We get around 50 orders a day, that too with zero marketing spends and I feel we have the capability to handle 1,000 orders a day now."

Blue Digital is looking to raise around Rs 2 crore which will be used for product development, innovation and marketing. "Other than this we will also be concentrating on hiring the right set of people who will help to grow this new 'product' into an organization," said Singhal.

In the future, Blue Digital aims to generate about 20 per cent from the digital marketing unit, 60 per cent from IMStylish and the rest from the 'yet to be born' product.

Back of the envelope calculations show the e-com site would be doing GMV of around Rs 10.5 lakh a month at present. This is too small, which means the digital marketing business would need to sustain IMStylish as well as the upcoming product.