As of Tuesday, 21st March 2024, Snapdeal has started working through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a non-profit company by the government. This announcement of the E-commerce platform not only helps the mass buyers in perfectly seamless access to its products but aids a wide reach for the brand.
Since ONDC is a government body, it aims to widen the e-commerce platform with its large base. The expectation with this body is to digitise the entire value chain. The prime focus of ONDC is to level the playing field for e-commerce marketers and provide access to millions of scattered small businesses and traders in the country. Snapdeal entering the arena with ONDC, following Flipkart-backed Ekart Logistics, Dunzo, and PhonePe, who are already in the process of integrating with them, as a partner, only assures a large scope for the brand, both in terms of merchandisers and selling market.
Effects of Snapdeal joins ONDC
Being the only e-commerce platform to fully cultivate itself, its buyers and sellers onto the ONDC platform, Snapdeal began its collaboration in July last year, fully putting itself on the map only last month. Snapdeal has over a decade of experience in serving lacks of small and medium enterprises, with distinctive knowledge of the right things and time to provide the market.
The majority of Snapdeal customers (86%) come from outside the metro cities. Thus focus is given to the value segment, with numerous products priced below 1000 Rupees. Currently, the company focuses on home and kitchen products ranging from utensils, bedsheets, towels, storage and serving sets to kitchen tools, but aims at expanding to Fashion and Apparel, Beauty, and Skincare products which will include but not be limited to womenswear, menswear and kids wear according to the seasons.
An official statement by Snapdeal says that the orders have been from towns and cities like Ajmer, Aligarh, Indore and Amravati, among many more. The collaboration of Snapdeal and ONDC is set to offer fast-selling products to the masses with personal care products which include lipsticks, eye make-up, cosmetics in general, and accessories like wallets, belts, sunglasses and watches.
The movement of e-commerce growth to Tier 2, 3 and the smaller cities from the bigger cities has increased exponentially. According to the Red Seer Report, mid-income buyers of Tier 2+ of society will increase from 78 million in 2021 to 256 million in the next five years. While in 2022, Tiers 2 and 3 constituted 41.5% and 21.4% market share, respectively.
Adding to Snapdeal’s official statement, the CEO, Himanshu Chakravrti says that the best way to enable India’s existing retail players, especially MSMEs is to accept and work on the online opportunities, which would reap the digital dividend for the larger sections of India’s society. He adds that the e-commerce platform’s prime goal with ONDC is to enable medium enterprises, sellers, and start-up brands to expand and grow their business through the popular platform.
T. Koshy, the CEO of ONDC exclaims that they are excited to partner with a popularly approved and trusted home-name brand, Snapdeal, and tap into its repertoire of merchants from across the nation and link them directly to the numerous customers online. He adds that this particular decision will especially aid both, the big and small sellers in acquiring equal opportunities to reach their client base.
