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How easy our lives have been ever since e-commerce portals came into action! Snapdeal is one such platform that makes online shopping a boom with its exclusive deals, coupons, and discounts for consumers. Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in February 2010, Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company based out of New Delhi. Among the surrounding e-commerce platforms in India, Snapdeal has managed to carve its own niche with its impressive range of discounts and product categories.
Here's learning more about Snapdeal Online India, its Founders and Team, Business Model, Revenue Model, Funding, Valuation, Acquisitions, Competitors, and Growth in the article ahead.
Snapdeal - Company Highlights
- Startup Name-Snapdeal
- Headquarters-Gurgaon, India
- Sector-E-commerce
- Founders-Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal
- Founded-2010
- Valuation-$800 mn+ (November 2021)
- Revenue-$63.81 Million (around Rs 510.2 crores in FY21)
- Total Funding-$1.8 billion (November 2021)
- Parent Organization-Jasper Infotech Private Limited
- Website-snapdeal.com
Snapdeal - About and How it Works
Billed as one of India's largest online marketplace, Snapdeal has a wide assortment of over 15 million products that are available for quick delivery in places around the country. Founded in 2010, Snapdeal India aims to create the most trustworthy and frictionless e-commerce ecosystem that creates life-changing experiences for both the sellers and the buyers of the country. Snapdeal offers a product range of over 15 million that are divided neatly into 800+ categories from over 125,000 regional, national, and international brands and retailers.
As the trend of online shopping has seen rapid growth, it made e-commerce websites like Snapdeal as familiar as household names. Fast deliveries even to the remote corners of the country, lightning deals, and exclusive offers and discounts that make products available at never-before prices to its customers are a few things that have helped Snapdeal climb up the ladder of the e-commerce ecosystem.
Shopping online, particularly at Snapdeal, is child’s play. All you need is a mobile phone or laptop or tablet with an internet connection to get started. You simply need to log in on Snapdeal.com and drop down the wide range of products across categories. Once you have zeroed down to your favorite products, you can simply place the orders by filling in the details and the products will be delivered right to your doorstep.
Thanks to the easy-to-understand, flexible policies and SD Advisors to help the sellers at each step, anyone from manufacturers to wholesalers and retailers, everyone can now sell on Snapdeal.
The customers can shop their favorite products at Snapdeal even on the go with the help of the Snapdeal App. Available for both Android and Apple users, the Snapdeal app is quick, user-friendly, and enables shoppers to buy products in a breeze. Furthermore, Snapdeal also helps the users avail of the timely notification facilities that are sent on their phones/tablets so that they don't miss out on the amazing deals and offers that the website brings.
Snapdeal - Owner/Parent organisation
Jasper Infotech Private Limited is the owner/parent organization of Snapdeal headquartered in Delhi. It runs the e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal.com.
Jasper operates as a holding company. The company, through its subsidiaries, provides marketing and e-commerce services, such as offering discount vouchers at restaurants, movies, shopping, health packages, lifestyle products, travel, and entertainment.
Snapdeal - Target Market Size
The gigantic size of the eCommerce market was last valued at $9.09 trillion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7% during the period between 2020-2027. The Indian market is also not too far. Growing at an exponential rate, the Indian e-commerce market was valued at around $22 bn in 2018 and was estimated to be reaching $200 bn by 2027.
Ecommerce growth of market size
“Everyone talks about e-commerce is penetrating to Tier II and III cities. In my mind, that was so 2018. We’re talking Tier 9, 10, 15 and 20 now,” says Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder, Snapdeal
Snapdeal - Founders and Team
Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal are the founders of Snapdeal.
Founders of Snapdeal
They started as high school friends and then went on to become business partners when they launched Snapdeal. Believe it or not, together, this duo walked away from a merger deal offered by Flipkart and envisioned and adopted an evaluated focus on the 400 million value-conscious Indian consumers.
Kunal Bahl
Kunal is the Co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal. Bahl was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, from where he completed a degree in Systems Engineering. He was also an alumnus of The Wharton School where he studied Marketing and Operations Strategy. Bahl was also there in the Jerome Fischer M&T Program. In his professional career, Kunal started as an Independent Director of Piramal Enterprises Limited before co-founding Snapdeal in 2010. Bahl also co-founded Titan Capital in 2011. Thus, Kunal can be summed up as an investor and entrepreneur who aims to create impact through entrepreneurship.
Rohit Bansal
Rohit Bansal is the Co-founder of Snapdeal. Bansal has a BTech. and an MTech. degree in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, after completing which Rohit co-founded Snapdeal with Kunal. Rohit Bansal is also an investor at Titan Capital. Bansal is recognized for his impressive skills in Team Management and Business Development.
The total employee strength of the company has been listed between 501-1000, as per the Snapdeal Linkedin profile. The company was last reported to have around 800 contractual workforces.
Snapdeal - Mission and Vision
The vision and mission of Snapdeal is to create "India's most reliable and frictionless commerce ecosystem that creates life-changing experiences for buyers and sellers."
Snapdeal - Startup Story | How was Snapdeal started?
Back in 2010, when the founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal wanted to start their venture, they came up with an offline couponing business, which was named MoneySaver. This company sold around 15000 coupons in three months and that’s exactly when it was time to notch this business to a level up. And hence, Snapdeal was founded on February 4, 2010.
When it launched, it was primarily a daily deals platform, and then later in 2011, it expanded to become an online marketplace. Since then, Snapdeal has grown to become one of the largest online marketplaces in India.
Kunal Bahl has illuminated Twitteratis and others about the story of how Snapdeal got its first angel investor and how it proceeded toward an era of growth. Here's sharing the insight:
Snapdeal - Business Model and Revenue Model
Snapdeal operates the digital B2C (Business to customer) marketplace, which allows third-party sellers to sell their products on the website directly to customers. The company operates a portfolio business model. Snapdeal, at its core, operates a matchmaking business model, where it connects online sellers directly to online buyers.
It also offers complimentary products such as delivery and logistical support to businesses to help encourage the use of its matchmaking platform.
Recently, Snapdeal has made a change to its business model. As updated on July 21, 2021, the ecommerce company has flipped its business model and started to target audiences that are value-conscious. The company will no longer sell high-end brands but will target audiences who believe in getting value out of the affordable range of products.
Snapdeal - Name, Tagline and Logo
Snapdeal usually comes up with a new tagline every year just before the festive season kicks in. In 2015, it hired Bollywood actor Aamir Khan to reposition and promote the brand, with the tagline Dil Ki Deal (a deal that tugs at your heartstrings). In 2014, Snapdeal pushed the message of discounts and savings with Bachaate Raho (keep saving).
Snapdeal - Competitors
Snapdeal directly competes with:
- Amazon
- Flipkart
- Myntra
- Shopclues
Club Factory and many such companies have gone on to take a great market standing in the online shopping sphere.
Snapdeal - IPO
Snapdeal is to go for an IPO soon. It has already filed an IPO with the market regulator SEBI towards the end of 2021. This upcoming IPO would contain a mix of fresh issues of equity shares worth up to Rs 1,250 crore and an offer for sale of up to 30.77 million equity shares by the existing shareholders, including Sequoia Capital, Madison India, Foxconn, Softbank, and more, as per the reports dated December 21, 2021. Snapdeal will be looking raise around $165 mn through the sale of new shares, and the offer for sale.
Snapdeal - ESOPs
Eyeing its initial IPO, Snapdeal increased its ESOP pool by 151%. The shareholders of the company have already passed a resolution to increase the Employee Stock Option Scheme 2016 to 5,00,000 from 1,98,890, as per reports dated October 13, 2021. Furthermore, they have also filed that the added 3,01,110 ESOP options will be exercisable into equity shares of INR 1 each. Besides, the eCommerce giant has also appointed Kaushik Dutta (Director, Thought Arbitrage Research Institute) as an independent director, according to the SEBI listing regulations.
The company has allotted nearly 394 mn bonus equity shares to 61 of its shareholders, as per the reports dated December 4, 2021. The bonus shares of the company were allotted in the proportion of 159 new bonus equity shares of Re 1 for each equity share of INR 1, which makes it in the ratio of 159:1 share.
Snapdeal - Partnerships
Snapdeal has seen an array of partnerships since it was founded. Here's a list of some prominent ones for your perusal:
Snapdeal has partnered with the online dispute resolution platform Sama, to deal with consumer complaints. It has already witnessed a success rate of 50% in the initial pilot on June 17, 2021
Snapdeal has collaborated with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to help its users make QR code-based payments smoothly on the arrival of the orders on December 17, 2020
Snapdeal has partnered with Medlife. This will help the users of the former to avail themselves of the facilities of health checkups from the comfort of their homes, order diagnostic tests, and order medicines online to be delivered at their doorstep on May 6, 2020
Phonepe is another association of Snapdeal and as a result of the collaboration, the latter lets the users pay directly from their Phonepe accounts without any hassles. This partnership was announced on December 11, 2018
In March 2015, Snapdeal brought Bollywood’s famous actor, Aamir Khan for the promotion of its website in India
Also, in November 2019, the company joined the International Trademark Association (INTA) to support the protection of intellectual property on online marketplaces
The Walmart-backed eCommerce company is in talks with Bank of Baroda Financial and NPCI to launch co-branded RuPay credit cards, which will be rolled out for the users by March 2022. This joint effort will aim to popularize the adoption and the usage of credit cards among online buyers from the smaller towns and tier 2 and tier cities of India. These cards would also bring reward points and other benefits for the users and can be used on Snapdeal and other transaction points.
Snapdeal - Growth and Revenue
Snapdeal Revenue, Losses and Financial Details Y-o-Y
Snapdeal has reported INR 925.3 crore in FY19, which fell to become INR 916.6 crore in FY20. The total income of Snapdeal fell again during FY21, at the end of which the company registered INR 510.2 crore in revenue, thereby witnessing a significant fall of around 44.3%.
The total expenditure of Snapdeal was registered at INR 626.3 crore in FY21, which dropped by 47.4% from INR 1,211 crore in FY20.
The losses of Snapdeal, which grew by 47% earlier from INR 186 crore in FY19 to become INR 273.5 crore in FY20, shrunk to INR 125.4 crore in FY21.
Once valued as a unicorn, among the first of the Indian companies with a billion-dollar valuation, Snapdeal's dreams seemed to take a nightmarish turn in the summer of 2017 amidst funding issues and an impending merger deal with Flipkart that too at a fraction of $6.5 bn, the highest valuation of the company. However, the founder duo didn't lose hope and stayed strong and independent, which is why Snapdeal is among the Indian e-commerce startups that is still strongly reigned by its founders. Besides, Snapdeal is notably improving its status, focussing on adding value to the customers.
The company has reportedly achieved numerous milestones, most of which came through in the past 4 years. Some key highlights that speak of the growth of Snapdeal are:
Resisted the blows of 3 major conditions in 2013, 2017, and the pandemic period.
It has 40.15 mn monthly active users.
Snapdeal boasts 200 mn app installations per month.
Snapdeal takes pride in having 50.37 mn customers shop using its website/app since FY19, among them, around 14.82 mn customers are annual transacting customers.
Snapdeal covers 96.65% of pin codes across the country.
The company registered a total of INR 374 crore worth of net merchandise value in Q2 of FY22.
All of this growth that the company is continuing to witness is part of a new revolution commonly referred to as Snapdeal 2.0
Snapdeal conducted its "Kum Mein Dum Diwali sale" in October 2020. In this extensive sale, the platform witnessed tremendous growth of traffic and buyers.
“The extent and depth of orders received and shipped from non-metros cities illustrates the accelerated growth of online commerce in recent months,” said Snapdeal.
Snapdeal’s phenomenal growth in this short span has been a remarkable journey for the founders and the startup community. Also, when eBay, one of the giants in this space invested in Snapdeal, they brought immense experience to the table.
Snapdeal is likely to launch its IPO sometime soon in the upcoming year.
Snapdeal Onboarding the ONDC Platform
The ONDC network is a powerful concept that has already started its trial run and would immensely help the country's markets be furnished with appropriate digitalisation. After big players like Amazon and Flipkart, with most of their subsidiaries, and many other popular businesses like Dunzo, Paytm, and Meesho, have already joined the platform, Snapdeal is also looking to join the same. The company has already signed up the onboarding agreement to join ONDC earlier in July 2022, and will likely be integrating with the government initiative later in August 2022.
Snapdeal will be conducting a pan-India launch in August 2022 after the integration. The company is expected to serve 2500+ cities and towns across India, and will add more places accordingly, keeping pace with the expansion of the ONDC network. The launch of Snapdeal will proceed with across 3 main categories - Fashion, Home care, Beauty and Personal Care. Snapdeal is looking to partner with numerous third-party logistics vendors, and would also look to explore other on-network logistics options that will be there on the platform.
This move would certainly beef up Snapdeal's customer base and help the company cement its position even in the smaller cities and towns.
Snapdeal - Startup Challenges
Snapdeal is facing tremendous market competition on the arrival of Amazon and with the growth that the Indian e-commerce platforms like Flipkart have seen. Besides, the rebranding of the company had also taken quite a hit. Furthermore, the company, due to its rising expenses and dipping valuation, has also seen a high attrition rate of its top executives.
FAQs
What is the revenue of Snapdeal?
Snapdeal has reported a revenue of $63.81 Million (around INR 510.2 crore) in FY21, which fell by 44.3%, from INR 916.6 crore in FY20
What is the valuation of Snapdeal?
The market valuation of Snapdeal once stood at $6.5 Billion (INR 47 Thousand Crores) in 2016, however, the company has faced heavy competition in its league, which had a heavy toll on its operations, total valuation, and overall revenues. Snapdeal was last valued at over $800 mn in 2021.
Who is the owner of Snapdeal?
Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal are the founders of Snapdeal. Jasper Infotech Private Limited is the owner/parent organization of the company.
When was Snapdeal India founded?
Snapdeal was founded in February 2010.
Who is the CEO of Snapdeal?
Kunal Bahl is the CEO of Snapdeal.
Who are the competitors of Snapdeal?
The competitors of Snapdeal include:
- Amazon
- Flipkart
- Myntra
- eBay
- Paytm
