Snapdeal Gold service has helped company to reduce cash on delivery orders

India: Snapdeal, a Gurgaon-based e-commerce giant is able to bring down cash-on-delivery (COD) orders to 50 percent, owing to its recent free Snapdeal Gold service upgrade, that is available on orders paid for at the time of buying. Moreover, offers from banks has led to a record increase in customers opting for prepaid options. In the first two days of Snapdeal Unbox Diwali Sale, more than 50 percent of users opted to pay by credit and debit cards, net banking and wallet to avail attractive offers, interest-free EMI’s and free shipping.

The number of COD orders placed by customers before the launch of Snapdeal Gold was more than 70 percent and the company believes that it would bring down COD even further. However, unlike Amazon Prime and Flipkart First, Snapdeal is not charging for this service and they are confident that the customers will have the best ever experience with Snapdeal this Diwali season.

SD Gold is a direct service that is able to change the current behavior of consumers by making it a win-win situation in a way that consumers get free-shipping and Snapdeal gets rid of the costs linked with COD orders. Snapdeal has shipped around 400,000 packets in a day from its biggest logistics warehouse facility in Delhi, along with other warehouses across the country that shipped thousands of orders more, as the orders poured in from more than 16,000 pin codes across India. Customers has welcomed the launch of this service by Snapdeal and this can be figured out by the increasing number of customer upgrades to SD Gold, as it is offering them a meaningful benefit at no extra cost.

According to TechSci Research, company is focusing on fast shipping process, that can only be possible by having a majority of fast moving products quality checked and ready for dispatch in advance, based on an accurate assessment of demand using predictive data analysis. COD is considered as the major pain point by the online players, due to higher number of returns. Even the logistics required to bring cash to the company makes it more expensive.

According to a report published by TechSci Research, “India E-commerce Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020”, the country’s e-commerce market is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 36% during 2015-2020. E-services segment, which comprises online travel, online payments, online classifieds, etc., is expected to continue its domination through 2020. However, the e-tail segment that includes electronics, apparels & accessories, health and personal care, etc., is expected to witness significantly higher market growth compared to e-services segment over the next five years. During 2015-20, the western region is expected to remain the largest e-commerce market in the country. Major players operating in India’s e-tail market include Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.