Snapdeal 2.0

Snapdeal believes the e-commerce story over the next 5-10 years will be around the growth of the 'value' lifestyle segment, and the online marketplace is looking to corner a "decent slice of this opportunity" as it focuses on unit economics, quality checks, and use of AI as well as tech to measure and improve customer experience. Snapdeal's business metrics are "in a good space" in the value e-commerce category and it has opted to "reinvest in growth now" as financial parameters are within striking distance of profitability, Himanshu Chakrawarti, CEO of Snapdeal, told PTI. In an interview, Chakrawarti said that Snapdeal expects a "normal" festive season, which typically yields a 25-30 per cent surge in demand over other months. "As per estimates the value (lifestyle retail) market in India is growing significantly, from USD 88 billion to USD 175 billion. Also along with this, the e-commerce portion is going to increase from 8 per cent to 22 per cent...we are largely focused on our .

What Snapdeal has done in the past two years, says a company spokesperson, is focus on the 'next 400 million online buyers'

He acknowledged they are building a company in the most hyper-competitive e-commerce market in the world, up against not one, not two, but three multi-hundred billion dollar global e-commerce behemoth

Also, shifting to a smaller office with around 800 employees, as well as selling off its other companies have helped it to both run a leaner operation but increase cash in the bank

Bahl's plan of Rs 150-cr gross profit of Snapdeal 2.0 in 12 months is misleading, says employees

Snapdeal 2.0 can reduce cost but, it's going to be harder to improve the shaky customer expeerience

Finally breaking their silence on co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal's decision to pull out of supposed merger with Flipkart, some of the early stage investors in the online marketplace have come out in support of the move.While a host of minority shareholders as well as early stage investor Kalaari Capital are displeased with the decision not go ahead with the merger, some such as Nexus Venture Capital have come out in full support for the co-founders."Nexus, as a long term Snapdeal shareholder, fully supports the Snapdeal 2.0 journey. We will continue to partner with the company to help achieve its goals," the venture capital fund said in a statement on Wednesday. During the five month long discussions for the sale of the ecommerce platform to Flipkart led by SoftBank Group, NVP has been one of the strongest ally of the co-founders, sources said.Sources said that NVP along with the founders who in total have three votes in the Snapdeal board, vetoed against the deal every time .

Snapdeal will trim its operations over the next 2-3 months