Acquisition project | Parekh Cards

📄

Acquisition project | Parekh Cards

Elevator Pitch

Overview :

Parekhcards.com has been operating in the wedding invitation and stationery space for over 30 years, fulfilling over 100,000 orders globally. Its original value proposition was centered around high-quality printed invitations with customization options, primarily targeting the Indian NRI customers - that discovered the business mainly through the company's SEO efforts. With the rise of digital cards and free tools like Canva, the company is re-positioning itself as a one-stop solution for wedding invitations, E-vites, and gifting—offering integrated, personalized design services to create differentiation in the market.

The intention of this repositioning is two-fold :

- To increase the ticket size of customers by offering not just wedding cards but also E-vites and Wedding favors

- To help add to the value proposition to users - as the value proposition of wedding cards as a commodity diminishes but the desire to have a Big Fat Indian Wedding persists.

Having found initial success and good feedback on the repositioning - the business is looking to expand it's audience.

Website : https://www.parekhcards.com/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/parekhcards/

Youtube : https://www.instagram.com/parekhcards/

Elevator Pitch :

"Your wedding isn't just another event — it's THE blockbuster occasion of your life, and it deserves to be remembered like one! At Parekh Cards, we transform your big day with bespoke invitations and personalized gifting that will have your guests dancing like they're in a Dharma movie. From intricately designed cards to thoughtfully curated wedding favors, every piece is crafted to turn your celebration into a show-stopping statement. With over 100,000 orders delivered seamlessly, we know exactly what it takes to create that "Kya baat hai!" moment. Because this isn't just another wedding — it's THE event of the year, and we're here to make sure it feels exactly like that. Explore ParekhCards.com and get your wedding gifting sorted in just 48 hours!"

Understand the user

Understanding your ICP

	ICP - 1	ICP -2	ICP -3
Who they are?	Naina & Rohit	Rocky & Rani	Raju & Stephanie
Age	26 - 32	24 - 29	28 - 35
Who they are?	NRI couple that met during university and are settled abroad.	An Indian couple looking to plan their big fat Indian wedding.	A transnational couple trying to organize a wedding where traditions from both countries are
Location	US, UK, Canada	Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, New Delhi	US, UK, Canada, Spain, France, Germany
Pain Points	Cost, Limited Availability Locally	The need for everything in the wedding to be one of a kind, Too much co-ordination required for multiple vendors.	How do they ensure that they're able to represent both cultures and ensure they're able to make both set of cultures feel welcomed.
Household Income	$150,000 - $270,000 (1.3 CR - 2.4CR)	80L - 2CR (Taking into account income of both families)	$150,000 - $270,000 (1.3 CR - 2.4CR)
Budget for the wedding	$60,000 - $150,000	60L - 1.5CR	$60,000 - $150,000
Decision Makers	The couple themselves	The Families of the couple	The couple themselves
Social Media Use	Facebook Groups, Instagram, Pinterest	Instagram	Facebook Groups, Instagram, Pinterest
What are their fashion/design influences	Bollywood Movies, Instagram Pages, Influencers - looking for their big movie star moment	Top Indian Fashion Designers - Sabhyasachi, Naeem Khan. Looking for exclusivity/couture experiences	This can vary based of the nationalities of the couple. Usually get their inspiration from Instagram.
What do they want their guests to feel like when they attend their wedding	They want people to feel like they are back in India and that they feel included and attended to.	They want people to talk about this wedding for as long as possible. It's a statement of how well them and their families are doing.	They want families from both cultures to feel like they are included and that they're able to understand each other's traditions.
What is the expectation when they come to Parekh cards	Cheaper options than are available internationally, seamless delivery, to get things done quickly and with less back and forth.	To offer solutions that are personalized and to get most of their invitations and gifting done quickly.	They're looking for guidance on how to best come up with designs/experiences that integrate both cultures.
Pitch	48 Hour Delivery, One stop solution, Delivering your Bollywood moment	White Glove Service dedicated to make your wedding one of a kind	Your personal consultant to help you make sure your one of a kind wedding is welcoming to everyone

Criteria	Adoption Rate	Appetite to Pay	Frequency Of Use Case	Distribution Potential
ICP 1	High	High	One Time	Moderate
ICP 2	Moderate	Moderate	One Time	High
ICP 3	High	High	One Time	Low

ICP 1 chosen because that cohort of users have significantly fewer options to choose from.

Understand the market

📉 Headwinds (Challenges) for the Indian Wedding Card Industry:

Rise of E-vites and DIY Tools:
Tools like Canva, Paperless Post, and other free platforms are making it easy for couples to create professional-looking invitations themselves, reducing the need for traditional printed cards.
High Competition and Fragmentation:
The industry is flooded with boutique brands, DIY designers, and online template shops, making it harder for any one player to stand out or command premium pricing.
Price Sensitivity:
With overall wedding budgets becoming tighter, couples are cutting down on stationery costs, often prioritizing spends on venues, outfits, or photography instead.
Multiple Stakeholders:
Wedding decisions typically involve multiple family members, leading to longer discussion periods, indecisiveness, and delayed purchases.
Global Supply Chain Risks:
For businesses targeting NRIs, international shipping disruptions, customs regulations, and high freight costs create delivery risks and squeeze margins.

📈 Tailwinds for the Indian Wedding Card Industry:

Large and Growing Wedding Market:
India has around 10–12 million weddings every year, making weddings a consistent, non-cyclical market. Invitations, whether printed or digital, remain a core tradition.
Increase in Destination and Themed Weddings:
Destination weddings and heavily themed events require personalized, coordinated stationery across multiple elements—save the dates, invites, welcome kits, thank-you notes, etc.
Wider Acceptance of Hybrid Models:
Couples increasingly use a combination of printed invites for close family and digital invites for larger circles, boosting demand for companies that offer both services.
Global Indian Diaspora Demand:
Indians living abroad in places like the US, Canada, and UK have limited culturally relevant wedding stationery options locally, and are willing to pay a premium to source it from India.
Shift Toward Personalized and Story-Based Weddings:
Weddings today are seen as an opportunity to tell a couple’s story through design. This creates strong demand for custom artwork, themes, and highly personalized stationery.
Technology Integration:
New features like QR-coded invites, RSVP tracking, augmented reality elements, and wedding websites open up upselling opportunities for companies that adopt tech early.

Basis of Assumptions

Let's Divide the Indian Market into 3 as per the Theory of India 1-2-3 - Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG8vB5PybVo

India 1
- Population: 100–120 million
- Household Income: ₹10 lakh to ₹30 lakh+ per year
- Characteristics: Affluent consumers with high discretionary spending; similar to Singapore in terms of consumption behavior
- Share of Consumption: Contributes approximately 60% of India's total consumption
India 2
- Population: 250–300 million
- Household Income: ₹2 lakh to ₹10 lakh per year
- Characteristics: Emerging middle class; aspirational consumers; comparable to Poland in terms of economic behavior
India 3
- Population: 1.0–1.1 billion
- Household Income: Below ₹2 lakh per year
- Characteristics: Lower-income group focused on basic needs; similar to Mexico in consumer structure

Some Statistics about the Indian Wedding Market

Total Industry Size: The Indian wedding industry is valued at over ₹10.79 trillion (approximately $130 billion), making it one of the largest in the world. Source - INDmoney
Average Wedding Cost: As of 2024, the average cost of a wedding in India is approximately ₹29.6 lakh. Source - Everything you need to plan your event
Annual Number of Weddings: India hosts approximately 10 million weddings each year. Source - Venture

Proportion of Wedding Costs spent on Gifts and Invitations - 12% - 18%. Source - https://www.ibef.org/blogs/examining-the-economic-impact-of-india-s-wedding-industry

1. Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Target Segment: India 1 (120 million individuals) - approx 5% - 7% of the population
Estimated Number of Weddings: 10 Million - assuming India 1-2-3's proportion's hold - no. of India 1 weddings = 5% of 10 Million = 500,000
Average Spend on Invitations and gifts: For premium weddings, invitation costs can range from ₹50,000 to ₹2 lakh. Taking an average of ₹80k per wedding:
- TAM = 500k million weddings × ₹80k = 4000 Crore

2. Serviceable Available Market (SAM)

Parekhcards.com's Service Scope: Assuming Parekhcards.com can effectively cater the 3rd and 4th quartile of India 1 ie. 5% - 8% of the India 1 segment due to factors like costing, buying patterns, geographic reach, marketing, and operational capacity:
- SAM = ₹200 Crore

3. Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)

Market Share Assumption: Assuming Parekhcards.com captures 10% of its SAM:
- SOM = 10% of ₹200 crore = ₹20 crore

Understand the product

Parekh Cards is a wedding invitation and gifting solutions platform designed to simplify one of the most complex parts of wedding planning—communication and gifting. Couples today make hundreds of decisions while planning a wedding, from themes and guest lists to invites and return gifts. The process is often overwhelming due to tight timelines, social expectations for the wedding to stand out, and the pressure to make guests feel included and valued. Parekh Cards solves for this by offering a one-stop shop for printed invitations, customized e-vites, and curated gifts—ensuring design consistency, personalization, and ease of execution. It helps couples get every detail right without juggling multiple vendors, reducing stress while enhancing the overall experience for both hosts and guests.

Understanding Core Value Proposition/Problems Parekhcards.com is trying to solve

1. Too many decisions to make during wedding planning

Problem: Couples face decision fatigue, making hundreds of choices—from venues to catering and that often makes the entire experience of planning a wedding painful. Couples feel like they just want to get done with the wedding.
Solution: Parekh Cards streamlines this by offering invitations, e-vites, and gifting on a single platform, reducing coordination efforts and enabling faster, more confident decision-making. Users are looking for companies to do the heavy lifting - reduce the feeling of angst - create the feeling of "we're as invested as your are and we've got you".

2. Overwhelmed by the need to coordinate between multiple vendors

Problem: Handling separate vendors for invites, e-vites, and gifting leads to design mismatches, delivery delays, and miscommunication.
Solution: Parekh Cards offers end-to-end services—managing design, production, and delivery across all categories—ensuring cohesion, quality control, and fewer moving parts.

3. Social pressure for the wedding to be unique and memorable

Problem: Couples want their wedding to stand out, and generic solutions fail to meet that need.
Solution: Parekh Cards offers customization at every stage—letting couples reflect their story, culture, or theme across mediums (print, digital, packaging). We want to hear their stories and we want them to feel like the gifts and the invites personify them.

4. Need to make guests feel included and valued

Problem: It’s hard to create a personalized touch when dealing with hundreds of guests.
Solution: From personalized name-printed invites to QR-coded e-vites with individual guest messages, we help couples create meaningful guest experiences at scale.

5. Angst to get every detail right and fear of missing something important

Problem: Couples often feel anxious about missing details that might reflect poorly or disrupt plans.
Solution: Our guided process includes milestone check-ins, mockups, and built-in checklists to ensure quality and thoroughness at every step.

6. Difficulty in scouring the market and coming up with ideas that are the perfect fit

Problem: Couples spend time and energy searching for inspiration or vendors who "get" their vision.
Solution: Parekh Cards acts as a curated design partner—offering a pre-vetted library of themes, concepts, and custom workflows based on wedding style, culture, or region—eliminating guesswork.

7. High costs and limited options in global markets (US, UK, Canada)

Problem: In countries like the US, UK, and Canada, invitation and gifting services are expensive, and culturally aligned options are limited.
Solution: Parekh Cards leverages India-based manufacturing to offer high-quality, customized products at competitive prices, with international shipping to key NRI markets—solving both cost and cultural relevance issues.

If your product is in early scaling stage

Designing Acquisition Channel

Parekhcards.com is in Early Scaling Stage - having received good feedback with the re-positioning of not just a place to get wedding invitations but a one stop shop for their invitation and gifting needs. It's looking to expand it's audience and find different channels to grow.

Channel Name	Cost	Flexibility	Effort	Speed	Scale
Organic	Low	Low	Moderate	High	High
Paid Ads	High	High	Moderate	Low	High
Referral Program	Medium	Low	High	Moderate	Moderate
Product Integration	High	Moderate	High	High	Low
Content Loops	Low	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate

Detailing Content loops

Content Loop

The Hook	A caricatured version of the couple that can be used while posting pictures related to the wedding - the intention is to supplement/replace the wedding hashtag
The Creator	The couple getting married
Distributor	The guests at the wedding - this is social signaling that they're attending this particular event

User Journey in this Setup:

1. Landing Page/CTA Invitation

On the website and social ads, there's a new callout: ➔ “💌 Make Your Own Wedding Sticker — FREE in 2 minutes!”
➔ [Create My Sticker] button
Messaging:
- “Dreaming of your perfect wedding? Start with a custom Instagram sticker!"

2. Upload & Customize (Sticker Studio Page)

Upload Couple Photo
Enter Names (optional text)
Choose a Style (Floral / Modern / Bollywood / Minimalist)

3. Select Version

Option	Details	Price
Free Version	Sticker includes small "Made with Parekh Cards ❤️" watermark	₹0
Paid Version	No watermark, premium finish file	₹100

Option

Details

Price

Free Version

Sticker includes

small "Made with Parekh Cards ❤️" watermark

₹0

Paid Version

No watermark, premium finish file

₹100

4. Capture Email / Phone Before Download

Before sticker download, show a fun gate:
➔ “Where should we send your custom sticker?”
➔ Form:
- Email (Required)
- Phone (Optional for WhatsApp updates)
- Checkbox: “I’m planning my wedding soon!” (Lead scoring)

This builds a warm lead list for retargeting.

5. Deliver the Sticker + Subtle Upsell

Instantly show a page:
- "Your sticker is ready!"
- [Download Sticker] button
- “Planning a wedding? 🎉 Explore our 48-hour wedding invite service and save 10%!” ➔ (CTA to Shop Invitations)

Since wedding cards and gifting is a one time purchase normally - the content loop must enable the user to come back to the page where they can discover offerings of the business and can be a great way to generate qualified leads.

Incase a user places an order without generating a sticker - it should be presented as a free of cost add-on during the post delivery call to improve advocacy and discovery of by other users ie. the guests at the wedding.

Detailing Paid Advertising

Metric	Description	Particulars
CAC	Customer Acquisition Cost	₹4,500
ARPU	Average Revenue per User (One-time Order)	₹60,000
Margin	Gross Margin (after production + shipping costs)	28%
Retention	Customer Lifetime (in weddings, mainly a one-time event)	1
LTV	Lifetime Value = ARPU × Margin × Retention	₹16,800
CAC:LTV	CAC to LTV Ratio	1 : 3.73

1. Facebook Ads (30% of budget)

Component	Details
Audience Selection	NRI couples (Age 26-32) living in US, UK, Canada; engaged/recently engaged; interest in Indian weddings, Bollywood
Campaign Objective	Lead Generation + Website Traffic (capture early intent)
Ad Type	Carousel Ad + Lead Form Ad

Ad Specifics:

Carousel Ad Headlines:
1. "Make your guests part of your love story - with personalized gifts and invites"
2. "Invites, E-vites & Gifting — Sorted in 48 Hours!"
3. "Personalized Indian Wedding Stationery for Your Big Day"
Description:
"Celebrate your story with stunning, custom wedding invites and gifts. Delivered globally, designed with love from India. Start planning your dream wedding today!"
Creative Direction:
- Visuals of grand Indian weddings, luxury invites, happy NRI couples receiving invites abroad.
- Highlight ‘48-hour turnaround’, ‘free international delivery’ badges.

2. Instagram Ads (70% of budget)

Component	Details
Audience Selection	Same as Facebook; heavy focus on stylish couples following Indian wedding pages, Bollywood stars, luxury brands.
Campaign Objective	Awareness + Traffic to Landing Page
Ad Type	Reels + Story Ads

Ad Specifics:

Reel Concept:
- “From Save-The-Date to Shaadi Day — We've Got You!”
Story Headlines:
- "Wedding in the US? Indian Vibes Included ✨"
- "Personalized Invites + Wedding Favors Delivered Worldwide!"
CTA:
- "Swipe Up to Get Started!"
- "Book Free Design Session!"

Influencer Collaboration Strategy

Objective: Use popular married NRI couples or Indian lifestyle creators to show off Parekh Cards' custom invites + wedding favors in real weddings or wedding content.
Content Type:
- Unboxing of wedding cards or gifting kits
- Quick Reels showing "Why we chose Parekh Cards"

The current content structure/style of parekhcards is not inline with the ICP (Millenials and quite soon Gen Z)'s content preferences - changing the type of content as well as the SKUs will significantly help attract the right audiences.

Detailing Referral / Partner program

Here's what the user journey for a converted user at Parekhcards.com would look like :

Stage	User Action	Parekh Cards Action
Awareness	User sees a ParekhCards Instagram Ad / Influencer Post / Google Ad	Showcase emotional, aspirational content (Bollywood moment, Big Fat Indian Wedding dreams)
Discovery	User clicks ad → Lands on website / Instagram page	Website homepage optimized with clear CTAs, showcasing product range (Cards, E-vites, Gifting)
Interest	User browses themes, past customer stories, quick preview of offerings	Easy navigation, highlight fast delivery (48hr) and custom design services
Consideration	User signs up for a sample kit / fills out inquiry form / books consultation	Offer free sample download / quick 1:1 virtual consultation with a design expert
Purchase	User places an order for Invitations + E-vites + Gifts package	Smooth checkout, flexible payment options, clear milestone dates shared upfront
Experience	Receive invites and favors	Provide mockups before production, trackable shipping, unboxing joy moment

The AHA Moment will when they unbox the product which - as part of the post delivery process parekhcards.com could do a call with the customer where they unbox the delivery and get real time feedback. At that time - the user could be incentivized to review or post a story and be introduced to the referral program.

Since - the probability of a repeat purchase for wedding invites and stationery is minimal - the referral must be introduced at the time of purchase. With mounting costs during a wedding - money is a great incentive for the user. Additionally considering that the ICP we are prioritizing are NRI's they're always looking to travel to/from India which is why travel incentives could be a good idea.