Tag: Snapdeal

Amazon pips Snapdeal to become India’s 2nd largest online marketplace after Flipkart

Amazon was India’s second-largest online marketplace by shipments last month, industry estimates show, as it dislodged Snapdeal to become the only major player to increase share from a year ago.

Amazon was India’s second-largest online marketplace by shipments last month, industry estimates show, as it dislodged Snapdeal to become the only major player to increase share from a year ago.

Market leader Flipkart’s share of shipments fell to 37% in March from 43% in the same month in 2015, and Snapdeal’s fell to 14-15% from 19%, show estimates by an investor tracking the logistics market and the chief executive officer of a logistics company that handles shipments for online retailers. Amazon India’s unit market share surged to an estimated 21-24% from 14%. Although the data are snapshots of shipments a year apart, they definitely point to a drop in the volume market share for the India-based companies. Other industry experts and analysts corroborated the numbers.

Also read: Indian e-commerce war: Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal & Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl involved in Twitter spat

They said the data were evidence of the larger unit market share trend in India’s ecommerce industry, although at least one recent estimate pegs Flipkart and Snapdeal ahead of Amazon India by sales. “Amazon is very rapidly taking market share from companies like Snapdeal and other smaller players.

If there is no new entry, it will be a two-horse race (between Flipkart and Amazon) by the end of the year,” said Satish Meena, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. “If Flipkart is not able to get its act together in the next 6-12 months, Amazon can overtake Flipkart also.”

Morgan Stanley estimates that India’s online retail market, including delivery of food and grocery, will be worth $119 billion by 2020 from $16 billion in 2015. Flipkart said in June 2015 that it was aiming to sell goods worth up to $12 billion in a year; Snapdeal had claimed it would do better than Flipkart; and Amazon has not disclosed a sales target.

Also read: Top 10 Indian Startups and how they took off

If Amazon is gaining market share, it will be another instance of a multinational internet company showing signs that it can become the dominant player in India. In the ride-hailing business, San Francisco-based Uber says it is catching up fast with market leader Ola, which in turn contests the claim. Online retailers shipped 8-9 lakh products a day in March this year, with Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal accounting for about three-fourths of the shipments, the estimates show. ShopClues and Paytm rank next.



Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal did not reply to specific queries from ET on their shipments, market share and average order values. The gains by Seattle-based Amazon, which launched in India a little less than three years ago, follow aggressive investing in its local unit — CEO Jeff Bezos has so far committed to pump in at least $2 billion in India. Flipkart and Snapdeal, meanwhile, are forced to trim expenses and wean customers away from heavy discounts as they struggle to raise money from investors at present valuations.

A new element has been introduced to the equation by the government’s ‘guidelines’ earlier this month on ecommerce marketplaces.

Also read: 11 Times when Indian startup wars got very real

One of the main requirements is that no seller can account for more than a quarter of sales on a marketplace, and this could affect each company differently – Amazon and Flipkart have greater reliance on large sellers but not Snapdeal. Amazon has infused at least Rs 6,700 crore since January 2015 into its India unit, Amazon Seller Services, with over half of that amount being invested since December.

The company has channeled a lot of that money into improving the shopping experience for customers in terms of delivery and aftersales service, say investors and analysts. Amazon is also expected to introduce its successful Prime subscription programme in India.

“In 2015, we grew by more than 250% over 2014,” a spokeswoman for Amazon India said in an email. “We are on a momentum to deliver similar levels of growth this year but on a much larger base.”

In terms of gross merchandise value, though, Morgan Stanley in a February report estimated Flipkart’s market share at 45%, Snapdeal’s at 26%, and Amazon India’s at 12%. The GMV metric reflects the total value of all the goods sold on a platform but does not factor in discounts or reflect the actual commissions digital marketplaces earn on those sales.

Even with those estimates, entrepreneurs and investors say this year will mark a heightening of rivalry between Amazon India and Flipkart. Snapdeal is increasingly betting on diversification to try to monetise its existing users by entering into or partnering with other firms to offer services such as payments, travel bookings and food and grocery delivery that could bring repeat transactions. “We already have more than 1 million users transacting across our platforms daily, which is more than Flipkart and Amazon put together,” said a spokesperson for Snapdeal.

Also read: How Sachin Bansal started: Life of Flipkart founder

The battle between Flipkart and Amazon has primarily been in electronics, including smartphones, but the action is likely to shift to fashion where the former has made significant headway with Myntra that it acquired in 2014. Electronics accounts for a large portion of shipments but fetch commissions of 2-7% whereas gross margins in fashion can top 45-50%, according to Morgan Stanley.

“We have clear leadership of the online market in India with over 60% market share in three of the largest segments — smartphones, fashion and electronics,” said a Flipkart spokeswoman. “Our focus will be to consolidate this leadership position by continuing to build world-class customer experience, innovate retail in India and build a technology powerhouse out of India.”

Flipkart, under new CEO Binny Bansal, is pulling resources urgently to improve customer experience. Saikiran Krishnamurthy, who heads the service product group including after-sales services, was in March given additional charge of Ekart, Flipkart’s logistics unit, to improve customer experience by making the two divisions work together.

“Flipkart has to win back customers’ trust that they had till two years ago,” said Meena of Forrester Research.

Flipkart had targeted GMV of $10-12 billion for 2015-16. The company did not say if it met the target.

This article was originally published in The Times Of India

Image credit: www.indiatvnews.com



Indian e-commerce war: Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal & Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl involved in Twitter spat

The ongoing e-commerce war spilled over to Twitter on Friday, when Sachin Bansal, co-founder of India’s largest online retailer Flipkart, made a direct jibe at competitors – Snapdeal and Paytm.

The ongoing e-commerce war spilled over to Twitter on Friday, when Sachin Bansal, co-founder of India’s largest online retailer Flipkart, made a direct jibe at competitors – Snapdeal and Paytm. Bansal tweeted, “Alibaba deciding to start operations directly shows how badly their India investments have done so far.” Recently, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has stakes in Snapdeal and Paytm, expressed interest in entering India directly this year.

Snapdeal’s co-founder Kunal Bahl was quick to respond to his arch-rival’s tweet, saying, “Didn’t Morgan Stanley just flush $5 billion worth market cap in Flipkart down the…”, accompanied by a toilet emoticon. “Focus on your business, not commentary,” Bahl tweeted. His comment come on the back of Wall Street powerhouse Morgan Stanley recently marked down Flipkart shares by 27%, bringing down the country’s most valuable privately held tech firm’s its valuation to around $11 billion from $15.2 billion.



This is not the first time Bahl and Bansal have locked horns publicly. Last year, Bahl had said in an interview that he will top Flipkart’s gross merchandise value or GMV by the end of 2015. Flipkart responded immediately through another interview, indicating it will remain the number one player in the Indian e-commerce market.

Alibaba holds around 5% stake in Snapdeal and nearly 40% – directly and via its arm Ant Financial – in online payments major and e-tailer Paytm.

The Indian online retail market is seeing a hotly contested battle being fought among the domestic players like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm and the Jeff Bezos-led Amazon. “This shows that none of the existing e-commerce players show leadership of the market. That’s what makes it such an easy decision for Alibaba to enter. Almost $7 billion of investment has gone and yet there’s no winner in sight. So it’s not just a reflection on Snapdeal and Paytm but the whole sector,” an investor in multiple consumer internet companies said.

Indian e-commerce companies have so far been burning millions of dollars in cash on discounting, logistics and marketing to get to a substantial scale. These subsidies have been financed by investors who have ploughed more than $3 billion and $1.5 billion in Flipkart and Snapdeal, respectively. But with the overall funding environment tightening globally and in India, from here on it won’t be easy for these players to rack up financing and consolidation in the market looks imminent.

This article was originally published in Times of India