Snapdeal to start 2-hour delivery and 40 fulfilment centres

Snapdeal is leaving no stone unturned to reach top spot in the Indian e-commerce market. With the heat of competition rising, Snapdeal aims to set up around 40 fulfilment centres across 15 cities to help its 30,000 plus sellers to deliver products to customers within 2 hours of order placement.

The Snapdeal Plus service has been launched to enable small and medium businesses to sell products on its platform. It has around 1,000 sellers already catering to consumers from more than 5,000 cities and towns. To attract more customers, delivery time of most products will be shortened  to just two hours compared to 24 hours previously.

Snapdeal has incorporated this into its expansion plan to stay ahead of other e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. Both offer same day deliveries in select cities.

‘Snapdeal Plus’ benefits for sellers

Within this year, Snapdeal plans to extend this service to about 30 cities users of which will have the following benefits:

• Sellers can stock inventory in the nearest fulfilment centre.
  
• Orders will be shipped from there to customers within two hours of order placement.
• Sellers owns inventory at all times.
• Analysis and reports are provided based on past sales, using which sellers can manage the inventory levels at the fulfilment centres.
• Sellers can supply locally and sell nationally.

The Snapdeal team hopes to tie-up with 100,000 sellers in the coming 12 months with more than 75% orders placed being replaced by this service.

Opportunity for an Indian Online Seller with Snapdeal Plus

Most medium and small businesses face problems like insufficient infrastructure, resources and knowledge to process orders and ship to customers. Understanding this, Snapdeal Plus helps such sellers and facilitates online selling without having to compromise on their margins. A seller can expand reach by selling locally as well as beyond the physical geography of his location.