Beauty services at home are increasing in popularity rapidly. UrbanClap, also known to be one of India’s largest services marketplace, happens to be the biggest  player in this vertical. Although beauty services which include beautician at home, party makeup, mehendi artists and bridal make up account for 5% of their gross requests, UrbanClap is still the key player in this arena with 8000+ requests and generated business worth Rs. 2.5 Cr alone in February. UrbanClap offers “at home” beauty services that brings high-end salon like quality of professionals  and products right to our customers’ doorstep. Despite bringing in only 5% of Urban Clap’s requests today, it is one of the fastest growing verticals and expected to reach 20% of total requests very soon. 


The traditional salon industry is ripe for disruption. Beauticians working at these salons get only 15-20% of the billings and as a result, their monthly salary is only Rs. 15,000. The rest of the money is kept with by the salons for their “brand” and physical real estate. As a result of this, salon owners own fancy cars and live in expensive home while the beauticians struggle to make ends meet. This model traps beauticians in low paying jobs and prevents them from becoming micro-entrepreneurs because they can’t afford to buy their own kit (Rs. 35,000 -40,000) and spend on marketing to get new customers. UrbanClap reverses this model by investing in training, providing ultra-portable kits on affordable monthly installments and by sending new customers their way through the UrbanClap platform and brand, thereby allowing them to work for themselves. UrbanClap only keeps 15-20% of the billings, and gives the rest back to the beauticians, increasing their earnings by more than double to Rs. 50,000 - 90,000.

UrbanClap’s match-making algorithm and robust backend systems ensure that once a customer places a request, the nearest beauticians are notified depending on their availability and services required by the customer. With booking slots starting as soon at 120 minutes from request submission, this is a truly on-demand beauty service.  One of our top makeup artists, Roopali Agrawal says, “A customer goes to UrbanClap looking for a makeup artist and specifies certain criteria like budget, event, location, and date, and UrbanClap sends them responses, within a few hours. As service professionals, I get more business because I only get relevant leads and I can then choose to work based on my convenience.

UrbanClap allows me that flexibility.”Speaking on the vast potential of this vertical, Abhiraj Bhal, CEO, UrbanClap, says, “Beauty is an integral part of our business which has the potential to generate $500 million in revenue for us down the line. The current focus is to aggressively increase service quality levels and push this category to occupy a 20% share of UrbanClap’s total business. With margins between 15-25% of the job size, we want to double down our efforts and create an empire out of this vertical.” 

However, right now it is a very crowded space and as the largest player in the market, UrbanClap is actively looking at acquiring a player in this industry. 
Bhal continues,“We are looking to acquire a company in the beauty services sector which can help UrbanClap boost presence in this segment. We are in talks with several companies and assessing them based on quality of team and execution. This will be a strategic acquisition for us which will go a long way in helping UrbanClap realise its beauty services potential.” 

By using the UrbanClap platform to create entrepreneurs, we are creating opportunities for our beauty professionals to live fuller and more meaningful live on their own terms.The long term vision at UrbanClap for the beauty vertical is to be able to have over 1 lac beauty professionals and 1 million requests on a monthly basis across the country. UrbanClap also sees a potential in partnering with some major cosmetic and beauty brand to white label these products through their services thus deeply rooting in trust and quality. 

About UrbanClap
Founded in November 2014, UrbanClap is India’s largest mobile services marketplace. It provides trusted services across 80+ categories including photographers, salon at home, home cleaning & repairs, yoga & guitar instructors, and many more. Whether you are looking to decorate your home, plan your wedding, or get healthier, UrbanClap is the ultimate destination for all service needs.UrbanClap stands for good quality trusted services and has been serving hundreds of customers across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and 4 other cities, every day for the last one year.

Courtesy by www.businesswire.com

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Kiran Vimala

15/04/2016 05:44 PM