Snapdeal plans to
launch 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas
NEW DELHI: Online retail is poised for a hyper jump into rural India. To go one
up on archrival Flipkart, Snapdeal - one of the country's largest e-tailers -
plans to tap 50 lakh low-income households in slums and villages across the
country. These include places such as Dharavi (Mumbai), which is Asia's largest
slum, Govindpuri, one of the biggest slums in Delhi, and villages in Gujarat,
Rajasthan and Haryana, among many others.
Snapdeal will launch around 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas by the end of next year with the help of FINO PayTech, an Indian financial inclusion solutions company. These e-commerce centers will be manned by village-level entrepreneurs, have personal computers and tablets, and also serve as collection and delivery points of packages since most people living in these areas usually have no permanent addresses. Additionally, they will help consumers with zero internet connectivity to shop online.
Snapdeal will launch around 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas by the end of next year with the help of FINO PayTech, an Indian financial inclusion solutions company. These e-commerce centers will be manned by village-level entrepreneurs, have personal computers and tablets, and also serve as collection and delivery points of packages since most people living in these areas usually have no permanent addresses. Additionally, they will help consumers with zero internet connectivity to shop online.
"I am going into
this thinking that we will be able to reach 5-10 crore new consumers in the
next three years," Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, told TOI.
At present, Snapdeal has around 3 crore registered users.
Interestingly, initial
pilot runs by these kiosks have revealed that the average ticket size of
purchases by rural consumers is not too far behind that of urban consumers.
"It is Rs 1,400 compared to Rs 2,000 from urban areas," said Bahl.
Snapdeal will be
offering a special assortment of utility-cum-aspirational products, such as
speakers, juicers, solar lanterns, diner sets, cameras and mobile phones. These
products will be curated on an exclusive page that will require login by a FINO
agent, who would place an order, collect payment, receive and deliver to people
who have no permanent address.
"This channel has
great potential. For instance, we call people from Dharavi the HNIs (high net
worth individual) of slums," said Rishi Gupta, executive director and COO
of FINO PayTech
Read more at:
