Snapdeal aims to triple seller base to one lakh this year

Homegrown e-commerce major Snapdeal aims to more than triple its seller base to 1 lakh in the next 12 months as increasing number of SMEs turn to the Internet to increase sales.
Snapdeal has 30,000 sellers on board and most of them are small and medium enterprises.
"On any given day, we get about 1,000 enquiries and about 15-20 per cent of them get added and this is happened mostly based on word-of-mouth from existing sellers," Snapdeal.Com co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl told PTI.
"In the next 12 months, we are confident of having one lakh sellers on board. We already have 30,000 now, the largest for any marketplace in India," he added.

Lifestyle (apparels) and electronics accounted for a bulk of its seller base.
Bhal said: "For SMEs, generally its a life of stagnation as business is more or less the same every month. But online, they have access to national audience and this increases their business manifold. About 93 per cent of India is SMEs and Internet is a great platform for them to connect with consumers."

Snapdeal has sellers from 200 towns and expects it to grow to about 500 this year.
"We are seeing good addition in south India, states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as well as places like Gujarat," Bahl added.

Asked about the steps Snapdeal is taking to bring more sellers on board, Bahl said the company follows a partnership model to ensure that sellers make money.
"We do not charge them for listing and we make revenue only when they sell. We also provide them adequate training. Most importantly, we are a marketplace and do not have our own products to compete with our sellers. That is a huge benefit that our sellers see," he said.
Citing an example, Bhal said an apparel maker has to make investment to set up a portal and on various payment gateways and even then, there is no surety that he will be able to direct traffic to the website.

"We offer analytical tools for them to know their sales velocity and how are they doing compared to other sellers in the same category in terms of pricing, shipping time and consumer ratings. This helps them tweak their offer in real time and making important business decisions," he said.
Asked if the company has witnessed any churn of sellers given the other marketplaces that have come up, Bahl answered in the negative.
"Sellers feel the difference when they interact. We have not seen any attrition of sellers," he said.