The thrill of doing business is achieving new heights especially in terms of sales growth. But with competition coming at you from every corner on an online marketplace, growth is a lot more difficult to achieve online.

To spur growth, promotions are a fundamental requirement. Those who sell on online marketplace get the benefit of marketplace advertisements and promotions. You can use these as a means of promoting your brand on a given marketplace and assist your ecommerce growth.

In this segment of IOS how-tos we will cover Snapdeal promotions and how sellers can participate in them.

Types of Snapdeal promotions

Seller-funded promotions allow sales growth due to higher visibility on the marketplace. On Snapdeal whenever a promotion plan is established for a particular product category sellers are alerted about it through the promotion tab on the seller panel.

There are two types of promotions on Snapdeal:

• % off on selling price
• % off on MRP

Based on the type of promotion you pick accordingly your net sales payable (NSP) will be changed. Snapdeal requests sellers to note, vendor funded cashbacks are deducted from the NSP.

Calculating promotion price

To calculate the cost of promotion you can click the calculate link provided once a promotion option is selected. Your contribution towards the promotion will be in the form of seller-funded cashback. This is applied on all orders received during the promotion period.

The marketplace advises sellers to check amount payable with the help of the sample calculator before applying for the promotion. Once the promotion is live the vendor funded cashback is visible on the catalogue panel for each SUPC.

Changing product price

Snapdeal allows you to change the pricing of their products before the promotion starts. However, you are not allowed to make any changes to the selling price once the promotion is live. This is because all promotion products are tagged based on their selling price.

In case of Rs. 499 promotions only products with the selling price 499 can be sold under this promotion. Changing the selling price of products during the promotion may result in your product being removed from the promotion campaign.

You will be charged seller-funded cashbacks only if you receive orders during the promotion period. In case you do not receive any orders you will not be charged cashbacks.

How to participate in Snapdeal promotions

To get started with your Snapdeal promotions here are some simple steps:

Step 1

Log into the Snapdeal seller panel and click on the ‘Promotions’ option on the menu towards the left of the seller dashboard. Here you will see all the promotions running on Snapdeal and invitations you have accepted.

Step 2

Under the ‘All Promotions’ tab you will find promotion specific to your products, brands and categories. Pick the promotion you’d like to take up and click on it.

Step 3

There are 2 ways to participate in an online promotion campaign.

Option – A

Select the participate option as shown below. When you do this all your products will be tagged in the promotion.

Option – B

For this option, you can download the ‘eligible product list’ by clicking that option as shown below. This allows you to add the SUPCs that you want to tag in the promotion.

Points to note about Snapdeal promotions

1. Promotions are based on certain criteria

According to the platform, all promotions run by them are based on consumer demand and market needs for that particular product. This is why the promotion invitations are based on the product a seller’s products, brand, categories and mode of fulfilment.

2. You can opt out of a Snapdeal promotion

Snapdeal allows you back out of a promotion before the acceptance deadline. However, you cannot opt out of promotions neither can you join a promotion after the acceptance deadline.

to opt out of a promotion:

Step 1 – Click on the promotion then click on the ‘download eligible product list’ to download it.

Step 2 – In the downloaded Excel file type ‘NO’ against the SUPCs you want to remove from the promotion.

Step 3 – Now upload the sheet with the saved changes to opt out of the promotion before the acceptance deadline.

What’s been your most effective ecommerce growth strategy so far? Have you participated in Snapdeal’s promotions before, what was your experience like?