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Journalism of Courage
From being one of Indias largest online movie rental portals,Seventymm has now branched out to movie merchandise. Mudit Khosla,CEO,Seventymm,talks about the change of track.
You are in the rentals business. What made you foray into movie merchandise?
The movie exhibition space is dynamic and seeing a lot of changes. Soon,we will have live streaming on 3G devices. Over the years,we grew the rental business,but realised that by not looking into movie-inspired merchandise,we were missing out on a lucrative category. Once we launched our Bollywood/ Hollywood T-shirts and other products,we have seen brisk sales. By March 2012,by conservative estimates,we should have done $1 million of business.
But has e-commerce really taken off in India? Movie merchandise too also hasnt done too well?
E-commerce has come of its own,the whole space is around $1 billion now. As for movie merchandise,our base is small,but its growing fast. Over the past few months we have done merchandise around Band Baaja Baaraat,F.A.L.T.U,Delhi Belly,Cars 2,Pirates Of The Caribbean and so forth. If all goes well,we will also do merchandise around one of the years top Bollywood releases this year.
Ra.One or Don?
We cant really comment,but they are the two most-awaited films of the year.
What is your business model? Foreign studios have ventured into merchandise and realised that in India no one is willing to spend a lot on merchandise.
Price points are very important. But our advantage is that we manufacture on our own,and are also into distribution and supply. Both back-end and front-end are in one cycle and that helps us bring down costs. Unlike retailers,we are in a virtual space and so overheads are less.
Has your present subscriber base been of any use in this new venture?
Yes. We have about 40,000 subscribers now and that has helped us find ready customers for the merchandise. Selling DVDs prompted us to get into merchandise beyond DVDs.
Has the distribution/supply chain improved? That has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks?
Yes,the distribution-supply chain has improved a lot. So has the attitude. Even the quality of entrepreneurship in e-commerce has improved. In the past one year,venture capitalists have been excited about online opportunities in India. The scope is immense. Whats important is that the intent from all sides to make e-commerce a better financial enterprise is huge now.
