The portal now sells Ayurveda products and offers consultation by Ayurvedacharyas
Shree Baidyanath Ayurveda Bhawan Pvt Ltd (SBABPL), one of the early Ayurveda-focused companies, is looking to ramp up its online presence and cross Rs 1,000 crore in revenues in its centennial year.
The Kolkata-headquartered Baidyanth, set up in 1917, is working on creating a healthcare ecosystem through its online platform allAyurveda.com that has been turned into an e-marketplace.
The portal now sells Ayurveda products and offers consultation by Ayurvedacharyas.
In 2016, the company also launched a chain of Ayurveda clinics-cum-retail store under the brand Kapiva Ayurveda that targets new-age consumers with herbal and Ayurvedic products
Ameve Sharma, president, SBABPL and director allAyurveda.com, told DNA Money that Baidyanath clocked revenues of Rs 940 crore in fiscal 2016-17 and has been witnessing a consistent 20% year-on-year growth over the last few years.
"We will cross Rs 1,000 crore in turnover this fiscal. We've always had a very strong healthcare mindset that stems from the promoters expertise in this space. There is a huge gap between what Ayurveda can do and what it's currently doing and that's what brand Baidyanath is trying to bridge.
"Currently, work is on bringing more diversified and new products with a strong healthcare focus. While staying true to the Ayurveda system, which is getting lost somewhere, we are working on spreading real Ayurveda by simplifying it for people across the globe to understand and use," said Sharma, who has worked with McKinsey & Co as a consultant for two years before joining the family business.
The number of Ayurveda medicine practitioners in India, according to Sharma, has remained the same between 1995 and 2017 while the country's population has almost doubled. The Ayurvedic medicine space hasn't really grown the way it should have owing to lack of opportunities and mainly because the space has largely remained unorganised, he said.
"There is no great professional environment for those pursuing this stream of medicine as a result of which classical Ayurveda is losing steam. Most of what you see in the market today revolves around Panchkarma which is just one aspect. The biggest bottleneck is there are not enough doctors to prescribe Ayurvedic medicines and it's a bit difficult for the layman to understand. You'll rarely find someone asking for Mahasudarshan Kadha at a store versus an allopathic medicine," he said.
Baidyanath currently has 11 manufacturing plants across India, of which eight are owned by the company and the rest are third-party facilities dedicated to manufacturing only Baidyanath products. This apart there are other ancillary units that the company has invested in and forged joint ventures.
Set up during the first dot.com boom in 1998, allAyurveda.com is currently does revenues of half-a-million dollars and has been an early entrant in delivering health and wellness solutions space in India and the US. The Baidyanath management has invested $250,000 in revamping the platform from being just an e-retailer of Ayurvedic products and content platform to providing personalised online consultations by qualified Ayurvedic doctors.
"In its new avataar as an e-marketplace, the platform now boasts of over 35 brand and over 3,000 stock keeping units from third-party Ayurveda brands selling in India and overseas. A 2.0 version will be introduced in over a week wherein we are refreshing the user interface and expanding product categories while also adding elements like a community for consumer engagement, artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbot," said Sandeep Bali who recently tookover as chief excutive officer of allAyurveda.com
As for the Kapiva Ayurveda chain, the company currently operates eight clinics/stores across metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata with plans to open in Bangalore and Hyderabad. In all, there are 15 additional clinics/stores in various stages of development.
"For the Tier II, III and rural markets we are getting into tie-ups with people who have effective footprint in these areas. We have already finalised an association and another one is in the process. Plan is to create tele-medicine kiosks across rural India thus providing access to an ayurevedic doctor and medicines," said Sharma, adding that the venture has already received a round of strategic investment from Gits Food and a few others, and has plans to raise over $5 million in a pre-Series A round next year.
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