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E-commerce battle: Snapdeal to turn shopping adviser
NEW DELHI: Snapdeal wants to break away from the herd of e-commerce players competing on discounts, faster delivery and selection.
NEW DELHI: Snapdeal wants to break away from the herd of e-commerce players competing on discounts, faster delivery and selection.
“There is lack of differentiation, especially among horizontal players,” said Kunal Bahl, CEO and co-founder of Snapdeal, which was pushed down to the third place by Amazon earlier this year.
Snapdeal aims at using analytics and data to aid buying decisions, as well as personalise homepages to suit your taste, based on social media mapping, search results and historic data.
Others such as Amazon and Flipkart, too, use analytics. You search or buy a pair of swimming trunks, and it starts featuring them every time you log into the site or the app.
Bahl wants to use analytics and data in a different way. For this Snapdeal acquired Targeting Mantra, a targeted digital media marketing firm.
Snapdeal wants to be part of its buyers’ life moments — child birth, wedding, buying a car, or moving into a new house, so that Bahl can push products that people buy during these occasions. “Analytics will be very helpful for targeting and personalisation,” he said.
In fashion, where Bahl will invest $100 million, Snapdeal will sell styles and looks (Limeroad and Voonik do that). So if you are looking for a formal shirt it will show results of professional looks and styles. For something more casual it will show styles more suited for a weekend.
In case of smartphones, it will try to understand your usage before showing you a list of phones.
Without being intrusive, Snapdeal wants meet you on festivals. During Ganesh Chaturthi — big in Maharashtra — it will push products relevant for buyers in that state. Similarly, it will do for Durga Puja in West Bengal.
A search for cookers will show rice cookers in south India, and pressure cookers in North India. That’s based on historical data on buying. “All this can be done using data, to provide better and relevant experience to consumers,” said Bahl, hoping to get a lion’s share of the next 100 million users coming online.
“Kunal (Bahl) has shown very progressive mindset by proposing the use of predictive and assistive commerce, but there are challenges such as changing the culture, invest in resources, ensure cyber safety, and meet expectations,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO and chief analyst of Greyhound Research.
Bahl said that its Rs 200 crore campaign “unbox zindagi” it’s the beginning of its five to 10 years journey.
For years, Bahl said, e-commerce has been transactional. It was limited to a large number of products at low prices. But as more buyers come online, knowing the customer helps. “Its critical for the platform to know what you are looking for… Its about aspirations of that individual buyer, and not aspirations at large,” Bahl said.
