Called the `Hallmark Privilege card', it empowers the Hungama.com members to a five per cent discount at all the Hallmark merchandise and outlets in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka between November 15, 1999 and September 2000.

The company intends tying up with more such companies to offer special schemes to its members. Hungama already has about 73,000 members worldwide of which 95 per cent are from India. To become a member with Hungama.com, all that the surfer has to do is login to the Website and register for free. Says Hungama's chief executive officer Neeraj Roy: ``Marketing in India has to be a fusion of the physical and virtual world. We are being recognised for the brand we have created in the Internet world. Hence an association is possible in the physical world.''

The nature of the association between Hungama and Hallmark is such that while Hallmark allows the privilege cards to be used in its outlets, Hungama in turn provides e-consulting and marketing solutions to the latter. ``We have plans of doing a lot of things with them on the Web in future,'' says Roy.

A look at the West shows that dot.com companies have worked out major dealswith companies in the physical world. According to Roy: ``Opportunity of doing things together with other companies in different forms is now a reality with the launch of this card in India.''

It is to be noted that Hungama.com since the beginning has worked out strategies to link the physical with the virtual world. It has had several ground level events and promotions. In August 1999, it entered the college campus by sponsoring Malhar '99, the college fest of Xaviers College, Mumbai. It has also been promoting Hollywood blockbusters like `Matrix'. It was been one of the first dot.com companies to enter cinema halls. When Sony Music was launching a promotion of the `Runaway Bride', Hungama.com organised a Runaway Bride Contest last month in the physical world. Sony Music and Hungama.com invited everybody to hone their skills by proposing to the bride and to win prizes for the most unique proposals.

In terms of the future, the company plans to decentralise by setting up separate centres in five cities. The purpose is to have a better logistic and infrastructure management.

Says Roy: ``All this while we had a internal standard whereby the despatch happens within 48 hours of a person winning a contest. With decentralisation, we want to shrink the delivery by one day because the office closest to the home of the surfer can take charge of the delivery.''For the purpose, it is in the process of providing a infrastructure set up for handling back-hand programme that will be fed into a local server. ``Investment will be in terms of people and infrastructure'', says Roy.