This Navratri, book your havan online

As the festival fever grips the country, some start-ups have found ways to tap into the spiritual market.

Start-ups, such as SaleBhai, OnlinePrasad and ePuja, have come up with innovative ways to provide assistance in conducting religious ceremonies and help worshipers skip long queues at temples.

Recently, Ahmedabad-based SaleBhai, founded in 2015, funded the e-commerce marketplace for sweets, eatables, puja items and related articles. The portal is offering customised Durga Puja packs for Bengalis and Amba Ma puja packs for Gujaratis during the upcoming Navratri season, and are also making special arrangements to deliver within three hours during Dussehra and Diwali.

Vishwavijay Singh, co-founder, salebhai.com said his firm provides a wide range of prayer paraphernalia. “Our puja offerings come in different sizes to suit daily and festive needs. These include hand-picked traditional and handcrafted products.”

Singh added, “This season, some 100 packs have already gone off the shelves, and we expect some 250-300 packs to sold before the festivities end.”

Another start-up, onlineprasad.com, helps devotees order prasad or other devotional offerings from popular temples sitting in their homes.

Similarly, epuja.com helps you book havans online across 3,600 temples in the country. The start-up ships the prasad to the customer.

Mumbai and Bengaluru continue to be the biggest markets for these start-ups.