Recently Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) asked Bharat Matrimony to stop its success ads. Which means they have either been highly successful in match fixing or at least in advertising about their ‘success’!
I had the pleasure of interacting with Mr. Murugavel Janankiraman (Founder) during the DMC (Mumbai – March) – surprisingly we spoke more about their Real Estate and Job Portal.
An interesting fact is that Mr. Murugavel supposedly found his better half at BharatMatrimony!
Did ask him about them going offline like Shaadi Point – to which I didn’t really get a satisfactory reply.
One of the elementary reasons why a prospect might visit Shaadi before BM is the name. The name is pretty long.
Longer the name = More the chances of a mistake while keying the site in + Online Laziness Factor (The laziness factor which creeps into the net surfer while keying in a really long URL. It is not the usual laziness, but more a mental sort of thing)
A reason why someone would visit BM before Shaadi is:
- Good advertising by BM
- Word of Mouth
Let’s get to their site:
What do I see?
An attractive girl! What are the chances that she’s going to be my soul mate?
Even SimplyMarry has an attractive girl on the first page, but at least they’ve mentioned age, height, profession etc – to make it a little believable that she has her profile uploaded.
The Search is again simple and efficient. Displays results without having to register – registration mandatory if I’d like to contact my prospective bride though (This is a common feature in all sites).
I see a banner of an offline meet – Mega Swayamvaram.
This drives the point through that users are more comfortable with offline activities – and I’m sure offline activities by all the matrimonial players will increase over the next year.
And then BM tries to convince me that they are #1. They talk about their Limca Book of Records entry and also being the most trusted and most visited matrimony portal!
Interesting thing is that they too quote Alexa statistics – and say they are way ahead of competition! But Alexa has a completely different story to say…
Shaadi, BM and SimplyMarry – all three of them quote JuxtConsult and JuxtConsult’s User Friendliness Report and how well each of them fared.
Shaadi and BM are clients of JuxtConsult too.
[Well the above report has received a fair share of criticism.
Quoting from the post -
“The 6 usability aspects are ‘branding‘, ‘navigation structure and added features‘, ‘website design‘ ‘company and contact info‘, ‘contact responsiveness‘ and ‘technical parameters‘.”
‘The top item on their list of usability features is branding! Would anyone please tell me just how can branding be a part of website usability? Sure, branding can play a huge role in building website popularity and thus the user base, but surely not usability.]
How important is it to me as prospective customer of BM to know that they are number 1? Would I shift to Shaadi if I realized BM was #2?
The same 20 people whom we asked about the ‘first matrimonial website which came to their mind’ (By the way, 5 of them had said BharatMatrimony) – the same people said it didn’t matter much to them who was No. 1, because they knew that a site being #1 or #2 does not guarantee the perfect groom or bride.
What about parents who do the spouse hunting for their sons and daughters?
On asking few parents the same question, the unanimous reply was – what matters to us is the site with the largest number of profiles and the amount of replies we get.
Back to BM. They give a detailed section dedicated to interests and hobbies, making it a little more personalized and gives added information about the members, which in this case shall be quite valuable.
The registration process is highly detailed. It can be looked at from 2 sides, either as tedious or extensive.
Since this is a marriage portal, more the information, better are the chances of getting a good match, hence, the extra information is welcome. It may take a little longer to register here, but should be worth it.
Also noticed their ISO 9001:2000 certification.
Paid Membership:
Far too many options…
Classic Super Package:
3 months – Rs 2290
6 months – Rs 3890
9 months – Rs 4990
Classic Plus Package:
3 months – Rs 1990
6 months – Rs 3390
9 months – Rs 4340
Classic Package:
3 months – Rs 1590
6 months – Rs 2690
9 months – Rs 3440
Far too many options for comfort. A user wants to get married and wants
to see value. Classic Plus just doesn’t make sense and I would be
surprised if it gets many sales.
Matrimony Xpress:
Their blogging platform. This acts as a gateway to share information on various topics ranging from marriage, anger management, family budgeting to love, and personal issues.
This is not an open blog, one must be registered to be able to blog on the site. The posters don’t appear to be users though. It’s more like competition for Shaaditimes.com
I had the pleasure of interacting with Mr. Murugavel Janankiraman (Founder) during the DMC (Mumbai – March) – surprisingly we spoke more about their Real Estate and Job Portal.
An interesting fact is that Mr. Murugavel supposedly found his better half at BharatMatrimony!
Did ask him about them going offline like Shaadi Point – to which I didn’t really get a satisfactory reply.
One of the elementary reasons why a prospect might visit Shaadi before BM is the name. The name is pretty long.
Longer the name = More the chances of a mistake while keying the site in + Online Laziness Factor (The laziness factor which creeps into the net surfer while keying in a really long URL. It is not the usual laziness, but more a mental sort of thing)
A reason why someone would visit BM before Shaadi is:
- Good advertising by BM
- Word of Mouth
Let’s get to their site:
What do I see?
An attractive girl! What are the chances that she’s going to be my soul mate?
Even SimplyMarry has an attractive girl on the first page, but at least they’ve mentioned age, height, profession etc – to make it a little believable that she has her profile uploaded.
The Search is again simple and efficient. Displays results without having to register – registration mandatory if I’d like to contact my prospective bride though (This is a common feature in all sites).
I see a banner of an offline meet – Mega Swayamvaram.
This drives the point through that users are more comfortable with offline activities – and I’m sure offline activities by all the matrimonial players will increase over the next year.
And then BM tries to convince me that they are #1. They talk about their Limca Book of Records entry and also being the most trusted and most visited matrimony portal!
Interesting thing is that they too quote Alexa statistics – and say they are way ahead of competition! But Alexa has a completely different story to say…
Shaadi, BM and SimplyMarry – all three of them quote JuxtConsult and JuxtConsult’s User Friendliness Report and how well each of them fared.
Shaadi and BM are clients of JuxtConsult too.
[Well the above report has received a fair share of criticism.
Quoting from the post -
“The 6 usability aspects are ‘branding‘, ‘navigation structure and added features‘, ‘website design‘ ‘company and contact info‘, ‘contact responsiveness‘ and ‘technical parameters‘.”
‘The top item on their list of usability features is branding! Would anyone please tell me just how can branding be a part of website usability? Sure, branding can play a huge role in building website popularity and thus the user base, but surely not usability.]
How important is it to me as prospective customer of BM to know that they are number 1? Would I shift to Shaadi if I realized BM was #2?
The same 20 people whom we asked about the ‘first matrimonial website which came to their mind’ (By the way, 5 of them had said BharatMatrimony) – the same people said it didn’t matter much to them who was No. 1, because they knew that a site being #1 or #2 does not guarantee the perfect groom or bride.
What about parents who do the spouse hunting for their sons and daughters?
On asking few parents the same question, the unanimous reply was – what matters to us is the site with the largest number of profiles and the amount of replies we get.
Back to BM. They give a detailed section dedicated to interests and hobbies, making it a little more personalized and gives added information about the members, which in this case shall be quite valuable.
The registration process is highly detailed. It can be looked at from 2 sides, either as tedious or extensive.
Since this is a marriage portal, more the information, better are the chances of getting a good match, hence, the extra information is welcome. It may take a little longer to register here, but should be worth it.
Also noticed their ISO 9001:2000 certification.
Paid Membership:
Far too many options…
Classic Super Package:
3 months – Rs 2290
6 months – Rs 3890
9 months – Rs 4990
Classic Plus Package:
3 months – Rs 1990
6 months – Rs 3390
9 months – Rs 4340
Classic Package:
3 months – Rs 1590
6 months – Rs 2690
9 months – Rs 3440
Far too many options for comfort. A user wants to get married and wants
to see value. Classic Plus just doesn’t make sense and I would be
surprised if it gets many sales.
Matrimony Xpress:
Their blogging platform. This acts as a gateway to share information on various topics ranging from marriage, anger management, family budgeting to love, and personal issues.
This is not an open blog, one must be registered to be able to blog on the site. The posters don’t appear to be users though. It’s more like competition for Shaaditimes.com