HealthKart
is India's premier e-health store, where consumer healthcare products, such as
diabetes supplies, nutrition supplements, home medical devices, baby care
products etc can be ordered via internet and received at the doorstep. HealthKart
sells authentic products, procured either directly from the manufacturer or
authorized channels, as the best possible price to the consumer. In addition to
selling healthcare products, HealthKart also offers free assistance and
nutrition counseling. HealthKart was founded in March 2011 by IIT graduates - Prashant
Tandon and Sameer Maheshwari who have significant experience in healthcare and
technology domains, both in India and US. The founders are also MBA graduates
of top tier US business schools. We had a chat with Prashant (Founder and Managing Director) to know more about HealthKart and
their plan going forward.
HealthKart.com
is an online store that provides health, fitness & personal care products.
We address the market need for authentic products and provide them to customers
across India. Our customers are Indian citizens across age groups &
demographics – everyone needs products that enable healthy and good living. A lot
of demand comes from Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities.
Our
fitness product range is popular among the youth, health products are bought
more by the 40-60 age group and wellness/ personal care/ family care products
has a lot of appeal for homemakers, typically in the 30-45 age group.
Tell us something about your
background and what ignited you to start HealthKart.com
HealthKart.com
was started by Sameer Maheshwari and me in 2011. We are both IIT graduates who
worked in US and completed our respective MBAs there. Sameer went to Harvard
and I went to Stanford for MBA. Thereafter, I worked with McKinsey & Co,
where I largely consulted for healthcare companies. Sameer spent his career on
the technology side, and was an investment banker with UBS before we teamed up
and decided to come to India.
We
chose to work in the healthcare technology space, and initially were working on
technology based business models with doctors and even worked with PHFI.
However, soon realized that the big need and opportunity was in the direct to
consumer– India needed a quality health store which sells authentic products
which were needed by people across the spectrum. E-commerce was just taking off
and provided the ideal platform to access consumers across the country, and hence
HealthKart came into being.
Typically, how many visitors comes
to the website and what is the conversion rate?
We
get almost 25-30k visitors on a daily basis and have a pretty healthy
conversion rate between 2-4%
You received 27Cr funding from
Sequoia capital and Omidyar Network, how are you utilizing it?
We
actually raised $7.5 M (around 37 cr and not 27 Cr). Kae capital also
participated in this round, besides Sequoia and Omidyar Network.
We
are using this capital to strengthen our operations, expand our product range,
get quality people to join the team and invest in marketing & brand
building.
How do you see the recent
acquisition of MadeinHealth.com ?
We
acquired MadeInHealth.com to access and further engage a community of fitness
enthusiasts. MadeInHealth has India’s largest community of bodybuilding and
fitness enthusiasts on facebook (130K fans) who are highly engaged. The
community has been built organically and offers us a great avenue to engage and
access a large base of potential customers.
We
are further strengthening the community and adding our backend operations
network to ensure MadeInHealth can provide the excellent community/
information, coupled with the strength of our backend operations and service.
We would be adding many new features and functionality on MadeInHealth and
overhaul the technology platform to make it a focused community site for
fitness in India.
How many brands /products you have
and how many more are you going to add in coming future?
We
have ~1000 brands & 13-14k SKUs and we would keep adding more as we find
good brands in India or globally. Soon we would be introducing very interesting
range of products from US & Europe, to further provide the best products
across India.
Which categories are giving you high
volumes?
Diabetes
& Home Devices, Nutrition & Fitness and sports accessories are doing
very well. We also have started selling a lot of fitness equipment like
treadmills, rowers, cycles, cross trainers recently.
What
all technologies are you currently buying or looking to buy in next 6-8 months?
We
are developing most of the technology in-house, or having it custom developed
by quality technology partners.Key
focus areas would be Mobile Applications, Pharmacy information application
& interesting user-engagement tools that we are developing.
What is your marketing strategy?
Our
marketing is largely online using social media (Facebook, Twitter), Online
advertising (Google Adwords, Facebook ads) and customer referrals. We are also
conducting health camps, fitness camps, diet counseling on phone and local
activation to increase our reach.
Where do you see HealthKart 2-3
years down the line?
I
see HealthKart as India’s health store in 2 years. It should be the one stop
shop which consumers all over India can trust as their partner in Health. We
would provide all genuine health products, information, and technology
resources to ensure the customers get maximum value out of their purchase.