Snapdeal’s Shopo Completes 1 Year, Launches Website And Escrow Protection

Snapdeal re-launched Shopo, a C2C marketplace with Zero Commission model to sell new as well as used goods in 2015 as a platform dedicated to SMEs. Little did they know that within a year it will gain unprecedented traction. Within a year it has on-boarded 2 Lakh sellers and over 5 Million listings.

A significant share of India’s nearly 50 Million micro SMB population, is under equipped to navigate entry-level barriers to online Business to Consumer (B2C) commerce marketplaces. In this scenario, Shopo with its easy listing of shops under 30 seconds and an online identity at zero registration costs, makes it an ideal platform for them to go online and set up their shop.

Earlier this month, at its first anniversary Shopo announced its web and WAP presence. The team also introduced escrow account for buyers and sellers powered by Freecharge.

Talking about the journey, Sandeep Komaravelly, Senior Vice President, Shopo said, “The refreshed user interface, our integration with Freecharge and our expansion to the Web and Mobile site are all steady steps towards building a platform that empowers our sellers as they grow with us. The growth in the C2C segment that we are witnessing closely follows similar C2C marketplace trajectories in global markets and we are sure to become much bigger in the coming quarters”

In an effort to enable buyer-protection, and to ensure seamless and secure shopping experience, Shopo has integrated Freecharge wallet on its app. This will offer escrow protection for buyers and sellers.

As part of this ‘Buyer Protection’, all online payments would cover the buyers from non-delivery and non-responsiveness from the sellers. Buyers’ money will be held in an escrow account and the money will be released to the seller only upon confirmation and delivery to the buyer.

Shopo currently has a 70-member-team. Talking about the monetisation plans for Shopo, Sameer said, that Shopo will stay a commission-free platform. The plans are to monetise through ads and will hopefully be implemented by next quarter.

Talking about the discounts being offered on Shopo he said, that Shopo only acts as a facilitator between the buyer and the seller. Therefore the prices are not influenced by Shopo. He also added that Shopo does not provide logistics support to the sellers on its platform, but only connects them with the logistics partners on their choice. Other features announced include-

1. Interest selection when users log in – To personalise the content that is shown in their feed, users first get to select their topics of interest as they log into Shopo.
2. Shop discovery – View of the app has now changed to make shop discovery more convenient for buyers, including recommendations of some of the ‘best shops on Shopo to follow’ based on their interest. They will get regular updates from these shops. The feed has been designed to aggregate user activity over a day and present together, making browsing a smoother experience.
3. ‘Social’ updates to build greater engagement on feed – Addition of engaging features to like and comment on posts, as on other social platforms. The user can also share the Shopo posts on other social media platforms making the experience more social and engaging.

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