Owned
and operated by Digital E-Life, ThatsPersonal.com, arguably India’s first adult
products ecommerce venture, is a brainchild of former Microsoft executive Samir
Saraiya. The portal, which offers a range of erotic lingerie, lubricants,
creams, literature, accessories, is set to tap a market which is by and large unexplored.
Users can order products and get them delivered discreetly to a location they
choose.
Talking
to India Digital Review, Samir CEO of ThatsPersonal.com talks about various
aspect of his venture, challenges, response from consumers and future plans.
“I
was working with Microsoft in Singapore so when I decided to move back to India
during 2010-11, there was so much buzz in the ecommerce space. By that time
almost every category was explored but I did realize that each ecommerce player
was playing on three pillars – convenience, best price and choice of products.
So, I chose adult products because no-one else was doing it and I believed it
has a huge demand which clearly cannot be satisfied by the retail market due to
the stigma attach to these products,” explained Samir on why he chose to
venture in the sexual wellness space.
ThatsPersonal
is extremely cautious about ensuring privacy of their customers by discreetly
delivering products to a location chosen by the user. The company has partnered
with courier firm Aramex for the same.
Explaining
the delivery chain, Samir says “Once the products reaches Aramex’s warehouse it
will be put in the tamper proof plastic bags which cannot be manually opened.
Nobody in the delivery chain will know what is inside.”
The
portal also launched ‘Customer Self Pick-up’ service in which users puts in the
pin code and a multiple location options are provided to him/her around that
area to pick up the delivery. In metros, the company offers 15 to 20 such
points while in a smaller city it could be one or two. User can select one of
the pick-up points as their delivery address and come and collect their order
from there.
ThatsPersonal
has sourced their products from renowned 15 international brands and in another
two months it plans to sign up 10 more merchants some of the brands are
American lingerie brand, Shirley of Hollywood, PJUR (Germany), Sensuva (US),
Shunga (Canada), Male Basics (US) and Premium Bodywear (Germany).
The
website has been getting 25,000 to 45, 000 unique visitors a month with a
healthy daily transaction number. The average order size is Rs 1800 with
traffic coming from top three cities Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai in that order
but the bookings here are very limited. Lingerie is the top selling category
followed by lubricants and edible body paint, candles and games etc.
“We
have a fair amount of traffic from Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and
Kolkata. We also have a quarter of traffic coming from smaller cities but when
we look at the orders 40 percent of them are coming from small cities like
Warangal district in AP, Nanded district and smaller towns in Punjab and the
order size ranges from Rs 18, 000 to 25, 000 fully prepaid via credit cards,”
he said adding that the website now introduced Cash on Delivery (COD) in March.
Sharing
interesting trends in user traffic, Samir informs that 25 percent of our
customer service calls and emails are from women. They want to understand more
about the privacy concept, ordering process and delivery time. While in terms
of orders, 20 percent is from women.
ThatsPersonal
team consists of co-founders which include Lekhesh Dholakia, and internet legal
expert, Vikram Varma, CEO, DDW. Abhay Bhalerao, Chairman of the Amrut Group of
Companies specialising in software. The venture is backed by former IAMAI
Chairman, Neville Taraporewalla and Jaspreet Bindra.
“The
venture is doing a healthy run rate of transactions to grow by over 50% month
on month. We are looking to make Rs 5 crores this year which is fairly
aggressive number,” Saraiya adds.
ThatsPersonal
is aiming to look at funding in six months down the line along with team
building. They are in talks with various
local and global brands to increase or product portfolio and ramp up their product offering.
“We
want to have the best range in the country. We want to have products across
different price points. We have been touch in angels and VCs. I see the venture
monetization in the last quarter of 2013,” informs Samir.
Presently,
various ecommerce ventures like FlipKart, SnapDeal, Jabong offers Lingerie
category. There are lingerie focused e-tailers like Zivame and PrettySecrets.