AgTalk | Consumers come to us for integrated sol: Ticketplease.com's Doshi

Ticketplease.com is one of the largest movie and ticketing portal in India. Backed by India’s leading Mobile VAS conglomerate, ticketplease.com has an outreach to 85% of the mobile using population of the country with 60 million active users on exclusive USSD platform.  Ticketplease.com offers innovative and convenient ticketing solutions to its consumers and is a one-stop portal for tickets to movies, concerts, plays and sporting events. With a widespread presence across all metros, II Tier & III Tier cities and a vast mobile outreach, Ticketplease.com ensures a seamless and efficient ticket booking experience to their target audience with many offers, discounts and value deals reaching out to around 100 million Indians through online, mobile and retail mediums.

Ashish Doshi is a 2nd generation entrepreneur with entrepreneurship in his genes. With more than a decade of experience, he is an indispensable part of several family owned businesses in the fields of Power Transmission & Distribution, Infrastructure Projects and Industrial Parks, Financial Services, Mobile Vas Technology and Solutions, Loyalty Solutions, Marketing & Distribution Warehousing and Real Estate. He is involved in New Business Development and was instrumental in starting the Mobile VAS business which has seen huge success. With his strong business acumen, attention to detail and flair for technology, Ashish Doshi then invested in and led Ticketplease.com into the new era of modern retailing whether in the function of Marketing, Product Development, New Concept Development or Information Technology.

In conversation with Adgully, Ashish Doshi, CEO, Ticketplease.com shared his thoughts on the company's growth and also about its road map for a successful future.

Ashish Doshi (AD): Ticketplease.com came across as an opportunity for an already established Global Mobile VAS company such as ours to further tap the potential in the Indian Market riding the Smart Phone and Data explosion wave in the country. Considering the scale and volume of the Indian market that can be tapped, there was a lot of opportunity to build Ticketing Solutions in the market. Interestingly, today, an average of 12% of event and movie tickets get sold online with a huge upside to the same as the industry grows considering industry estimates of 100 million plus internet users in the country. Thereby, we have consciously invested in a state of the art platform that empowers the ecosystem and brings our partners closer to customers without having to invest in the infrastructure.

AG: What kind of trends have you noticed recently in the domain you are in and how has it helped you to grow your business?

AD: We have had many key insights about Internet Users and thereby entertainment consumers in Tier 2 & 3 cities through our movies, events and offers.  Some of them include the growth of internet penetration in rural India being driven largely by the mobile phone; 70% of rural India's active internet population, access the web via mobile phones. This may have to do with the difficulty in accessing PCs.  Also forty-two percent of rural India's internet users prefer using the internet in local languages. The high prevalence of content in English is a hurdle for much of rural India.

We adapted this intelligence in current initiatives with communication being done in locally favoured language and seen encouraging response with higher conversion. Customized Solutions based on local language and local convenience would continue to be our key focus along with growth.

AG:  Brief us about the challenges or risks you've faced since the launch of this unique portal?

AD: As the management for the firm changed hands, our major challenge has been constant growth while creating value proposition for both channel partners as well as customers.  Risks are always associated with finding our unique share of voice in a market that is currently subjected to many similar sites with little distinction.

AG: How are you placed in India and what is the team size?

AD: We are based out of Mumbai with a team of 25 employees which is expanding rapidly. This team is supported by R&D resources in Bengaluru comprising of about 300 professionals who assist us in various technology led businesses of the group firms. Tasting initial success with Ticketplease.com, we have been steadily investing in building our capabilities while focusing on expanding our partner relationships with intent to continuously strive for giving our customers the best choices for ticketing solutions in terms of content and quality of movies and events.

AG: What is the key target audience you are catering to?

AD: We not only cater to film fans but also intend to mobilize the passion of music and sports fans to buy tickets to concert and events across India. While the Ticketplease team now offers movie tickets in 79 cities with its partner theatres and multiplex chains, it also has lined up events and discount deals that reach the heart of India i.e. the Semi urban and rural population
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AG:  What is your edge over competition? Also who would you consider to be your competitors today?

AD: Our edge is a wholistic approach of providing end to end audience management solutions driven with sharp revenue and business focus. Since no two entertainment ticketing portals in India offer similar offerings, our approach has been to create our own niche with relevant target audience.

AG: What kind of expertise do you offer to your consumers and what has been the response received?

AD: Consumers come to us for integrated solutions and Value based propositions on movies front as well as for unique experiences on events front. The response shared by customers has helped us in playing a larger role such as movie based contests with Star meet & greet along with events that function with RFID technology and cashless payment mechanisms to provide convenience and security.

AG: How big is the market that you are in and what is the market share?

AD: Estimated market share for ticketed or paid entry led events is 4800 crores approximately. We are the second largest movie ticketing portal in India and steadily expanding our event ticketing and offers business.

AG: How has the year 2013 been in terms of growth for you and what are your plans for 2014?

AD: 2013 has been a witness to our success streak  where in ticketplease.com partnered with movies like Once upon a time in Mumbai Dobara, Madras Café, Boss, Bhaji in Problem, Hunger Games 2 and What the fish, to name a few. Also on the event front in 2013, we handled ticketing and registrations of large scale sporting events like Vadodara International Half Marathon  (attended by more than 2 lakh individuals) to Large Scale Concert by Arijit Singh (attended by 30,000 audience) to  Premium Beach Music Festival VH1 Supersonic  along with choicest of Navratri events in Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.

AG: What are the marketing strategies that you are looking at, to cater to the evolving market?

AD:  We aim to offer a custom generated analysis of visitors to your sale page online and booth / box office/ retail location on ground.  The data generated is so deep, that now the organizer gets to know not only who bought the tickets, but also who didn’t.  Similar analytics would be difficult to implement on ground without online integration.  We are looking at offline and online integration for a seamless ticketing experience for audiences and organizers as a solution that caters to evolving market.