Snapdeal acquires Wishpicker: why that’s important for Indian ecommerce

For a while now, industry experts have been recommending that e-commerce shopping sites should become more personalised to improve the buyer experience. This was also considered important as more and more buyers are accessing the sites through their mobile phones, which is a personal device. ‘Personalisation’ seems to be the keyword in e-commerce at the moment.

Why is personalisation important?

Statistics show that though e-commerce is popular with interested shoppers, nearly 70% of the times, the shopping cart is abandoned by customers.  This means that for every ten customers who think about buying products online, only three actually go through with it.

This clearly indicates that e-commerce has a much bigger customer base to tap from for successful sales. Interacting in a more personal way with prospective customer improves the possibility of a successful sale. This has also been successfully implemented at the The Honest Company, which specializes in selling natural bath and personal care products online.  Using customers’ behavioural data, this company has been sending out customized emails to its customers. This has improved the conversion rates.

What is Snapdeal’s ulterior motive?

Snapdeal’s acquisition of Wishpicker further reinstates this concept. Wishpicker is a gift recommendation site where customers can give in details about the person they wish to buy something for. The website then suggests items specific to that customer.  This is the epitome of personalising the buyer’s experience, especially in India.

Reports suggest that Snapdeal has acquired Wishpicker with the idea that it can improve the shopper’s experience. This is because Wishpicker keeps a track of what the customer likes and is interested in on Facebook, which in turn is used to provide the customer with relevant product recommendations. Snapdeal would greatly benefit from this tool created by the Wishpicker team. Needless to say, this helps in increasing the number of conversions to sale.

Speaking about the importance of this acquisition, Rohit Bansal the co-founder of Snapdeal says, “At Snapdeal.com our focus is to leverage technology to create life changing experiences for buyers and sellers. This is an important acquisition for us in terms of adding new technology capabilities and helping sellers connect with buyers in newer ways.”

Is this move by Snapdeal a further indication that e-commerce in India is gradually transforming to become a different experience for each customer? If it is, it can be a win-win for both sellers and buyers. This is because an interested buyer will be able to browse through only relevant and important products, which will improve the chance of the product actually being sold.