Snapdeal, based in New Delhi, was founded in the year 2010 by two entrepreneurs Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. It was initially started as an internet platform for day to day deals and later expanded into a full-fledged ecommerce company. Today Snapdeal is available among different households due to its accessibility of internet and rising prominence of ecommerce in the Indian shopping scenario.

Some of the investors for the startup venture of Snapdeal includes :-

• Jasper Infotech
• Nexus Venture Partners
• Softbank
• Alibaba
• Foxconn

Currently the brand competes with the top ecommerce players like Amazon and Flipkart in the country and presently Snapdeal serves in more than 6000 town is countries with its 3 lakh plus sellers selling varied products. To become this much popular, it follows several marketing strategies.

4 Ps in the Marketing Strategies of Snapdeal

Product Strategy:

Snapdeal sells more than 30 million products in more than 900 plus categories for different segments of customers. The platform hosts a wide variety of brands including domestic and international, some of which are not available through physical stores.

• Snapdeal also provides offers and discounts by selling some of the products exclusively through its online portals by tie ups. Mainly electronic goods and mobile are the products that are included in the exclusive category.

Some of the major purchased and preferred products through Snapdeal platform includes:

•  Fashion brands products for men, women and children.

• Lifestyle products, beauty and fitness products in health and nutrition.

• Include electronic gadgets and mobile accessories too.

• Footwear for all age groups and gender.

• Different categories of books and movies.

• Home and kitchen appliances.

Pricing Strategy:

The major point of selling products across different ecommerce companies is the price set for each product. Since the idea of switching to ecommerce companies is low, the consumers tend to prefer those platforms which offer the least price. Snapdeal offers innovative deals for different categories of products based on their demands and has framed its pricing strategies based on it. It is offered in the form of reducing prices in terms of discount and promotional coupons for products or offering additional services in terms of entertainment, dining, spas, beauty products or weekend getaways etc. Snapdeal introduces various discount offers through cashback schemes by using online mode of payments.

Place & Distribution Strategy:

One of the major strategies of Snapdeal is through its online portal where visitors can view a wide range of products in offerings. With over more than 15 million subscribers provides the users with different categories of materials. To further increase the regional visibility across the country and to improve services Snapdeal has branch offices in major cities like Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad etc. With the objective of e-commerce distribution logistics like GoJavas and Unicommerce Snapdeal is looking forward to strengthening its supply chain and logistics mechanism of sellers. Snapdeal has adopted a model where they do not maintain inventory and rather help in promoting the sellers to advertise their products. 

Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

Snapdeal has used both online and offline promotions activities to get customers to its portal to make higher awareness of its products.

Some of its promotional campaigns include :- 

• ‘Dil Ki Deal’
• ‘Bachatey Raho’
• ‘Unbox Zindagi’ to name a few.

Various deals and discounts offered by Snapdeal have been advertised in the newspapers, TV commercials and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitters so that more people get to know about it. Also Snapdeal itself acts as a platform for promoting various categories products and their brands through its portal. Some of the companies sell their products through Snapdeal thereby giving a better visibility in the market. To gain wider reach the company has its own mobile app ‘Snapdeal App’ since smartphones have cracked to different regions of the country. Brand ambassador – Aamir Khan had been the brand ambassador of the brand, which led to the increasing popularity, however the contract was terminated due to a controversial statement by the actor. Similarly Snapdeal faced many problems due to confusion arising in the name with Snapchat after its head made statements regarding India.