Online marketplace Snapdeal has entered into a strategic partnership with Shoppers Stop to take its products online, while Snapdeal will expand its reach.
On this development, Kunal Bahl, co-founder & CEO of SnapDeal told NDTV “I feel that finally starting today there is a new beginning on how the lines between offline and online commerce are going to start blurring. For the end consumer the only thing that matters is great product, great price, great experience and then it’s up to companies like ours and Shoppers Stop to make sure that we deliver.”
Shoppers Stop will initially sell in Ludhiana, Delhi, Lucknow, Noida, Meerut and cities where it has stores. The plan is to expand sales in 35 cities with Shoppers Stop store in next one year.
Customers can buy Shoppers Stops’ product through the e-store and have them delivered through local stores. Further, users will be able to exchange or return the products at any of the 74 stores across 35 cities. Snapdeal will assist the firm with delivery, payments and logistics.
Govind Shrikhande, managing director of Shoppers Stop in an interview with NDTV last week, stated, “Globally online retail contributes 9% of total retail sales and it is pretty strong in US, China and UK. However, India is lagging behind but that also leaves a huge scope for player like Shoppers Stop to cash in.” Shoppers Stop is planning to make online shopping a major role for generating their sales.
Earlier Shoppers Stop had disclosed plans to invest $9 Mn on omni-channel initiatives. “We believe that the growth rate in online is going to be pretty big and if we can be party to this growth I think that would be great,” Shrikhande added.
Shoppers Stop currently sells its private-label brands on ecommerce sites such as Amazon, Flipkart and few others.
This move comes at a time when all the major ecommerce companies are trying to enhance their offline presence by bridging the gap between offline and traditional brick and mortar store. As a matter of fact, Flipkart has also launched self pick-up stores called ‘experience zones’ in 10 cities through which customers can collect their shipments from nearest experience centre at their convenient time.
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