Snapdeal offers zero commission mobile platform to sellers, with relaunch of Shopo

In 2013, Snapdeal acquired Shopo, an online marketplace for Indian designer and handcrafted products. Then slated as India’s Etsy, speculations were rife after the acquisition that the ecommerce giant would use the technology to come up with something on its own.

But now, two years later, Snapdeal is relaunching Shopo as a mobile marketplace to offer products across various categories like apparel, accessories, beauty & cosmetics, electronics etc. Yes, all the popular categories on the latest popular platform – mobile app.

Competing with Paytm?

Paytm is the leading mobile marketplace in India currently. The recently launched zero-commission model allows merchants to sell on the Paytm platform without paying any commissions, only a transaction fee is applicable.

But on this also, Shopo is going to have an edge over Paytm, and others:

• Free platform – Snapdeal is not charging any payment processing fee or commission to sellers selling on Shopo’s platform.

• No documents – Sellers don’t need to furnish any documents to start selling on Shopo.

• Sell in 15 seconds – Apparently, sellers can just click photos of their products, upload and start selling.

• Chat with customer – Buyers can interact with sellers directly enabling easy exchange of information and details between the two.

Smart move from Snapdeal?

When Myntra made its move to app-only recently, many insisted they would not take the same route and risk losing out on the desktop users. But it’s true that the growth of mobile commerce in India cannot be ignored. All the major etailers have a significant percentage of sales from their mobile platforms.

Snapdeal claims that 75% of their overall transactions are from their mobile app.

This move is definitely going to create waves in the ecommerce segment due to the absence of commissions and payment processing fee. Merchants are bound to flock to Shopo to atleast try it out, considering the margins they would get compared to other platforms.

Also, this would mean better pricing from the sellers, translating to better prices offered to consumers. So if it clicks, and Shopo can live upto consumer expectations in terms of service and quality of products, we might see a shift in consumer loyalties too.

We know Snapdeal competes with Flipkart and Amazon in the big never-ending ecommerce race. But then Paytm’s name has been popping up quite often this year. So is Shopo Snapdeal’s way of ensuring Paytm stays behind and not catch up with the others?