Religion e-commerce on the rise as ventures like 'Online Prasad', 'Proud Ummah' take off

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/emerging-businesses/startups/religion-e-commerce-on-the-rise-as-ventures-like-online-prasad-proud-ummah-take-off/articleshow/18822044.cms

6 MAR, 2013, 05.00AM IST, RADHIKA P NAIR & HARSIMRAN JULKA,ET BUREAU



BANGALORE: Stuckin a long queue to receive prasad at the Karni Mata Temple, or the Temple of Rats, in Rajasthan, 24-year-old Goonjan Mall suddenly thought how much more convenient it would be to have the religious offering delivered home.


Mall soon left his job as a senior analyst at consulting firm Bain& Co and signed up for a startup accelerator programme at The Morpheus, a Chandigarh-based incubator. Last year, he launched Online Prasad, an online site offering prasad from various temples, such as Jagannath Puri, Mata Vaishno Devi, Shirdi Sai Temple and Sri Venkateshwara temple, at prices starting from Rs 501. It is such divine inspiration and the growing surge in Internet commerce that is pushing young entrepreneurs to vie for a share in India's massive market for religious products and services.

Over half-a-dozen new ventures offering online 'prasad', customised kits for Haj and Umrah pilgrimages as well as religious art work and personal accessories have sprung up. "That was my eureka moment," said Mall, an engineer from the Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani. While certain large temples across the country offer online 'darshan' and accept donations, none deliver prasad. Such gaps are what Mall and his peers in the sector are plugging as they chart the second coming of an industry that waxed and waned in tandem with the dotcom revolution nearly a decade ago.

About 15 ventures that came up in that period, which mostly allowed customers to book poojas online, have since died out.

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