eCommerce & evolution of

Snapdeal.com

Gaurav Singh
Project Manager Snapdeal.com
gaurav.singh@jasperindia.com
gauravsingh1984@gmail.com
9958006771
1

eCommerce
e-commerce, is the buying and selling of product or service over
electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.
Amazon:
Started with books mainly
Started marketplace model. More than 40% revenue from this
Powerful search & reviews and ratings
Dell:
Sold assembled computers online
More than 50% revenue comes from website
eBay:
Online auction site
Seller ratings
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eCommerce
Power of eCommerce:

Unlimited assortment
Search
Reviews and ratings
Convenience of ordering from home / office
Usually, cheaper prices
Extremely easy to compare prices online

Challenges with eCommerce:

Concerns related to transacting online

Building entire supply chain
Monitoring quality
Compete with several players at once
Buying a product without physically touching it

eCommerce in INDIA

eCommerce in INDIA
Key factors influencing eCommerce growth in India:

Extremely low cost of PCs

Ever growing use of internet
Rising middle class with high disposable income
Limited reach of certain brands to people in tier 2 cities

Cash on Delivery

Change in mindset:
Irctc.co.in
Matrimony sites
Job sites
Online travel agents (makemytrip.com)
.

eCommerce in INDIA
Growth of eCommerce in India.
(Internet and mobile association of India)

eCommerce in INDIA
%reach (travel)

eCommerce in INDIA
%reach (retail)

eCommerce in INDIA
%reach (retail across categories)

eCommerce in INDIA

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Evolution of snapdeal : Plan A

MoneySaver: A printed booklet

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In US, 400 billion coupons were sold in 2007, in India this was 0.

In few months, coupons expired leading to useless inventory

Evolution of snapdeal : Plan B

Coupon on mobile.

Buy a scratch card worth 99 & get coupons on mobile.

Internet penetration was quite low compared to mobile (2008)

In free trial, 1 lac customers signed up, but barely a few paid.

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Evolution of snapdeal : Plan C

Money Saver prime card was launched.

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Distributed through CCD

Limited customer touch points

Also offered to corporates, to pass on to employees (B2B2C)

Corporate & Snapdeal co-branding

A good relationship with merchants was built

Evolution of snapdeal : Plan D

Snapdeal.com was launched (Feb, 2010)

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A merchant partner suggested this to CEO

Goal was to achieve 100 transactions / day after 3 months. It happened in 3 weeks
Acquired grabbon in June 2010

Evolution of snapdeal : Plan E

And we decided to be even closer to customers !!!

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By offering them products across 17 categories

Products sold across 12,000 pincodes in India

Evolution of snapdeal : Plan F

The grandest of them all MARKETPLACE model !!!

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Brand stores
Many brands do not have ecommerce site
Or, dont have the expertise to handle backend
3000 brand stores already in, expected to reach 10,000
Allowing vendors to upload and manage products

Evolution of snapdeal : Plan F

Brand store for Apple

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Evolution of snapdeal : Plan F

And off course a revamped mobile site !!!

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Doubled the revenues within one week

Still it seems there is a lot of untapped potential

Culture at Snapdeal.com

Making complex decisions

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You are leading the engineering team

Its Christmas time and marketing head approached you to put Christmas
theme on website

Director of production systems is skeptical to do any changes on the website

considering huge traffic

Product Head wants to get this done asap as this will directly increase
conversion ratio and traffic on site

YOU have to decide on what to do !

Culture at Snapdeal.com

Managing stress and being solution

oriented

You are Release manager

You are managing a big feature release which is expected to boost

revenue by 20 lacs per day

Feature releases will usually happen after 00:00 hrs since traffic is
lesser then

At 5:00 AM, test manager has discovered some issue

What do YOU do now ?

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Culture at Snapdeal.com

Be flexible and agile

You are in the middle of a feature release

Suddenly iPhone 5 is launched and your Business Development team

has tied up with a telco for exclusive launch on your site

If you launch iPhone 5, you are jeopardizing other features

If you do not launch iPhone 5, you are giving up a good chunk of

revenue

What do YOU do?

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Culture at Snapdeal.com

Dealing with Trouble

You are Project Manager responsible for all engineering deliverables

Product head and sales teams say that targets can not be met because
of engineering team

You know that is not true and you are being urged to stop supporting
other departments. Give it back to them.

What do YOU do?

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Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Mobile

Internet

Others
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900 million mobile users

Mobile users expected to touch 1200 million by 2015
27 million active internet users
Currently, only 3-4% are buying on mobile. Expected to be 20%

124 million internet users (all devices)

10% penetration
75% of online audience is between 15-34 years of age
Retail has grown by 43% online and reaches 60% penetration
among online users

eCommerce revenues expected to increase from USD 1.6 billion in

2012 to USD 8.8 billion in 2016
52 eCommerce companies raised USD 700 million from VCs in last
3 years
Currently more than 80% revenue is from travel, but abroad this is
around 35%. Online retail is expected to grow

Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Factors influencing growth

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VCs are bullish on eCommerce growth: Invested US$ 177 million in 2011

Online grocery shopping is starting to appeal to upper and middle class

consumer

eCommerce is expanding into non metropolitan India

More than 50% of sales of Myntra.com are from outside top 10 cities in
India

Social media and mobile are helping accelerate eCommerce adoption

India is Facebooks third largest audience in the world

Large retailers are looking to build online presence

Chroma

Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Challenges

Payment gateways are terribly inconsistent (35% failures)

Upto 70% transactions of some eCommerce companies are through COD

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23% online shoppers prefer COD. Mainly first time shoppers

In Myntra, 60% transactions are through COD
Return rate for COD is upto 25% in some categories

Card on Delivery in also provided by several players

Logistics remain an issue

Flipkart chose in house delivery solution. A model used in China and Russia as
well.

Several payment methods are a must to keep your business going,

Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Challenges

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Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Expectations of customers in India

Consumers are already trained to expect low prices online

Free shipping and quick delivery

Return process to be seamless and convenient

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Homeshop18 offers free shipping

At home pick up for returns

Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Look forward to following in future:

Increase in online shopping, since credibility is built now

Comparison of features and prices online will grow tremendously

Users will go online for reviews and ratings

Social networking and search will contribute significantly in eCommerce

growth in India

References:
State of Ecommerce in India - Sept 2012 (A research report by comScore
for ASSOCHAM INDIA).
Trends in Indias eCommerce Market By Forrestor research for
ASSOCHAM INDIA.
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Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Mobile will play a crucial part as it will grow significantly

References:
Mobile internet in India - IMRB

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Future of eCommerce & Snapdeal.com

Number of mobile internet users is now more than desktop internet
users (June 2012 onwards)

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Thank You

Contacts:
gaurav.singh@jasperindia.com
gauravsingh1984@gmail.com
09958006771
31