Months after acquiring Weddingz.in, OYO is set to foray into the wedding planning business with a chain of offline stores, according to an Economic Times report. The 200-odd employees of this Mumbai-headquartered company also came on board and Oyo is making full use of this new vertical since its portfolio of hotels and other properties offer readymade banquet venues for weddings and receptions.
OYO proposes to open retail stores as in brick and mortar outlets that would offer wedding products and use technology to simulate wedding scenarios and show to customers to book their orders. The Indian wedding business is one of the largest in the world estimated to be worth $40- 50 billion. OYO would want to gain as much share of this as possible through Weddingz.in. Weddingz is claiming that in the one year after the OYO takeover, they have clocked phenomenal growth.
OYO has drawn up plans to differentiate between the stores that will operate in the major cities and the ones in smaller locations. The size and nature of the weddings and the customer choices may be different. The 100% cash & stock deal to acquire Weddingz.in may open up a new profitable avenue for the SoftBank-backed OYO.
The company’s founder and CEO had made an announcement only recently that the startup is well on its way to making profits and its US foray has been a huge hit. The company is raising funds for the US operations and the promoter himself is pumping in $700 million through share buybacks.
All this augur well for the company going ahead and the wedding business may add more colour and pomp as well.