Headphone Zone: An Exclusive Headphone And Earphones Store

Headphone Zone is an exclusive headphone and earphone offline retail store founded in 2011 by Raghav Somani.

The company quickly scaled up to operate 6 stores in Chennai and Bangalore. Since then the focus has shifted primarily to the webstore, which went online on 1st January, 2015.

Besides this, Headphone Zone is supported by 25 operational staff across the country.

The primary differentiator of this startup is the fact that it is an exclusive portal for earphones and headphones. Brands which aren’t available easily in the country, can be found on the portal.

According to Raghav, India’s growing community of audiophiles wanted a platform on where premium brands could be showcased. That’s precisely what Headphone Zone strives to create.

Chitrakshi Suneja Interacts With Raghav Somani, Founder, Headphone Zone And Spoke To Him

Idea Generation

After completing my education in business management in Singapore, I came back to India to take over the family business which at the time was primarily focusing on the distribution of Video Tapes and Audio­ Video accessories. I realised then that most big retailers had little to no understanding of electronic accessories such as headphones or earphones and consumers had little understanding or options. A dedicated destination store for Headphones and Earphones didn’t exist in India and Consumers were looking for options to fill the gap, and that’s when I just knew that Headphone Zone could work.

Special Features

Headphone Zone is India’s first exclusive online store for Headphones, Earphones and Personal Audio devices. A unique retail concept combining Music, Electronics and Style, Headphone Zone aims to find a niche in the rapidly growing category in India’s e­Commerce space. A destination store for discovering the world’s finest Headphone brands, Headphone Zone focuses bringing the best music listening devices from around the world to India’s passionate music listening population.

Differentiation Factors

Headphone Zone maintains a simple online retail business model of procuring products from international brands and manufacturers and fulfilling orders using India’s various logistics and courier solutions. It is not a marketplace model like a Flipkart or an Amazon, for the simple reason that we want to cater to our customers in a meaningful way by giving them a premium shopping experience and by ensuring personal service. The focus is on education, premium product discovery and excellent customer service.

Funding & Traction Details

Headphone Zone maintains a simple online retail business model of procuring products from international brands and manufacturers and fulfilling orders using India’s various logistics and courier solutions.

It is not a marketplace model like a Flipkart or an Amazon, for the simple reason that we want to cater to our customers in a meaningful way by giving them a premium shopping experience and by ensuring personal service.
The focus is on education, premium product discovery and excellent customer service.

We’re currently seeing a turnover of 1 cr per month and an average of 10,000 visitors per day to our website. Headphone Zone is targeting to grow its business 400% in the next one year and 900% over the next two years.

Monetization Model

The revenue model is driven by cross selling relevant accessories to an audience simply interested in headphones. Rather than focusing on steep discounts, Headphone Zone channels its energy into developing great content, building a community and offering personal attention to each customer. “Buying headphones was earlier an impulse purchase or involved bargain hunting. With our webstore, we want to educate passionate music listeners about the various accessories available that both complement and complete the listening experience.”

Challenges Faced

The current eCommerce scenario in India has made buyers a Deal ­Hungry audience and building a reputation of offering transparent and fair prices without indulging in excessive discounting is an on­ going challenge.

Headphone Zone had decided to focus solely on High End and Premium Headphones and Earphones for a niche and passionate audience. A bold move, in hindsight it fundamentally required a re­organization in the business model for the better. Building an audience and educating them about the nuances of High End audio has been a challenge.

Marketing Plans

As any true blooded e-commerce venture, Headphone Zone too takes advantage of all the digital marketing tools available. From search engine marketing to social media marketing, the company maintains an aggressive approach to online advertising.

Headphone Zone reaches out to passionate music listeners by hosting Headphone Connect: a meetup event that unites headphone aficionados and Head Fiers from the audiophile community under one roof. So far events have been hosted in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi with the aim of hosting more meetups in cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad. The audiophile community is one that is fast growing with Headphone Zone at the centre of it and organizing meetups frequently across multiple cities simultaneously allows Headphone Zone to keep in touch and build meaningful relationships with loyalists, while expanding its customer base.

Market Size and Opportunity

The addressable market for headphones and its accessories share similarities with that for high end personal audio products in India. Our customers range from regular music lovers to serious audiophiles and professionals. In all our marketing strategies, our target customers comprise of males between the ages of 20 to 50 years. The market of high­end audio products has seen a steady widening what with the urban Indian population being a relatively early technology adopter.

Headphone Zone has focused on communicating to its consumers that a premium headphone alone is not enough for a premium music listening experience and so the focus is on complementary accessories and devices such as headphone amplifiers, high resolution audio players, headphone stands, earphone cases and premium in­ ear earphone tips. Headphone Zone represents international brands from Milano designed V­MODA, high­resolution handcrafted headphones from Audeze and HiFiMAN, premium earphone tips from Comply, music players, amps and DACs from FiiO, Astell&Kern and Schiit, RHA earphones that are from Scotland, JAYS from Sweden, and others.