Headphone Zone: Building A Premium Online Retail Brand In India Through Relationship Marketing

Set in 2025, this case traces how Headphone Zone, an India-based start-up, evolved into a leading online destination for premium headphones, earphones, and audio gear. Founded in 2011 as a brick-and-mortar retailer with stores in high-footfall malls across multiple cities, the company pivoted in 2014 to an online-only model — despite the challenges of selling a niche, experiential product in a price-driven Indian market with low awareness of high-fidelity sound.

Headphone Zone’s success stemmed from its high-touch customer engagement, emphasis on long-term relationships, and cultivation of an audiophile community through events and social media content.

The transition from physical retail to a pure-play e-commerce model, the decision to focus only on an independent ecommerce store rather than rely on established platforms, and the launch of co-branded headphones in 2024 present rich bases for class discussion. This case is well-suited for exploring issues in ecommerce management, service quality in the retailing of experiential products, and the opportunities and risks of co-branding with manufacturers. The emerging market context of India adds a particularly distinctive dimension. The case ends at another inflection point in Headphone Zone’s development: the decision to launch co-branded headphones and to manufacture their own branded headphones.

This case helps students understand concepts of relationship marketing and lifetime customer value in a service context. Students will also be able to determine how to identify and segment consumers in niche groups in an emerging economy; examine the challenges of retailing experiential products in a pure online format; apply service quality framework to assess a service business; and evaluate growth strategies, such as online-only model and co-branding with selective manufacturers.

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