Just two days back, Snapdeal offered Pay-On-Delivery (POD) option to its customers to pay through their credit and debit cards on delivery. This time the marketplace has come up with yet another offering to its customers by organising a return pickup within 90 minutes i.e. just about one and a half hours.
This development came again from Snapdeal’s logistic arm Gojavas, in which it acquired 20% stake in March this year. With this, Snapdeal customers’ will be able to return or replace their online orders within 90 minutes of intimation. The facility is presently being provided in 15 cities with swift, hassle-free returns and refunds. Moving further, the service will expand to all the 300 cities within a span of three to five months.
Ashish Chitravanshi, Vice President Operations, Snapdeal said, “The 90-minute reverse pick-up facility is a continuing collaborative effort to design insightful logistics solutions that strengthen our supply chain infrastructure. Our association helps us create unique offerings basis Snapdeal’s insights into customers’ everyday shopping needs and gojavas’ understanding of logistics and delivery challenges, with the ultimate focus on delivering customer delight.”
It’s just not Snapdeal which is trying to woo its customers. The other marketplaces in the domain are also on a spree to provide some better proposals to compete aggressively with the likes. Earlier, Amazon India had announced to deliver products on Sunday to customers in 100 cities of its service locations. It also opened five more Fulfillment Centers (FCs) to enhance online shopping experience for consumers in India. Also, Flipkart tied up with the Dabbawalas of Mumbai for last-mile delivery to customers.
Why is it necessary For Ecommerce Companies To Innovate?
According to the stats, the Indian retail ecommerce is expected to scale 45% CAGR and reach $20 Bn by this year. Over the past year, $5.3 Bn traction has been observed just in ecommerce retail. To woo the consumers the ecommerce firms are trying way too different techniques to capture a bigger market share and stand out. Snapdeal which acquired Freecharge and financial services portal RupeePower signalled its ambition to build a services platform offering array of products. On the other side, Paytm has reportedly brought Aliexpress, Chinese ecommerce player, on its platform to provide goods from Chinese markets. Innovating something fresh in its strategy, Amazon India partnered with GreenDust last month to provide an extended warranty programme for mobile phones, laptops, televisions and large appliances for its customers.
However, the industry analysts believe that the massive cash burn rates and high cost of customer acquisition will continue to trouble Indian ecommerce industry and paving way to try something new every time.
It is not only the horizontal players that are getting affected with the growing ecommerce pace. The other vertical segment like logistics industry is certain to watch. The rapidly evolving ecommerce sector, which obtain an essential amount of revenue only after the delivery of product, is estimated to drive the $167 Bn domestic logistics industry.
