Shopclues to target flea market shoppers

Shopclues, commonly known as an unstructured category marketplace player, which just concluded its 10-day festive sale, wants to have a go at it again. On Tuesday, the company said it was launching the next series of sales, including an eight-day “flea market sale”.

It will also hold its second edition of ‘Diwali festive mega sale’ from October 17.

Buoyed by overall growth, the company believes by the middle of next year it would achieve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) profitability.

Including its previous round, the company hopes to ship in 400,000 orders in total after the completion of its flea market discount sale. The company claimed it reached out to 30,000 pin codes, including 12,000 in rural India.

Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder and CBO of Shopclues.com, told Business Standard that the company was now the top player in tier-II, tier-III and rest of India markets and had emerged a clear winner following the festive sale.

“In India, it takes at least four to five Diwali sales to establish yourself. We can confidently say that we are the clear winner in tier-II, tier-III and rest of India. We are the dominant player in these regions,'' Aggarwal said. In the first 10 days, sales were ''extremely profitable for the company,'' she said. The reason, she said, was price led and not discount led. Also, the firm spent less than five per cent of the total industry outlay on marketing and branding, according to Aggarwal.

The big three online players – Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal – have indicated they are going to organise more sales through the festive season. Amazon India will have a three-day sale starting October 17, Snapdeal from October 12 to 14. Flipkart, too, has similar plans.

As for Shopclues, the highest growth in brand searches came from the northeast. Also, during Diwali, spiritual items are one of the biggest order drivers on Shopclues. The platform has also witnessed a ten-fold increase in television as well as feature phone segments on its website. Sales of 4G smartphones priced below Rs 5,000, 32-inch LED TV priced below Rs 10,000, and appliances have collectively increased five times on the platform.