The spurt in online shopping through mobile phones has set new record for domestic e-commerce major Snapdeal. The e-tailer claims it gets about 50 per cent of its sales through its mobile platform as an increasing number of shoppers place orders using their smartphones.
The company has seen a 25-fold growth in mobile-based transactions from a year ago. “With increasing consumption of data on mobile phones, we think that the next wave of digital commerce customers will come from this medium,” Snapdeal Vice President (Product Management) Ankit Khanna said.
“Our endeavor has been to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, whether they are shopping through the web or through their mobile phone s,” Khanna said.
The ability to build browser and device-specific experience as well as enhanced features aimed at better user experience on mobile platforms have played a key role in driving this growth, he added. Fashion and home-related products are the most popular among buyers transacting over mobile phones.
In October, Snapdeal had said 30 per cent of the orders on its portal were placed using mobile phones, a trend that had grown about 10 times in the preceding 12 months. About 45 per cent of the transactions on mobile phones come through native Snapdeal applications, while the remainder were made on the company’s mobile portal. The average ticket size of orders placed through mobile apps was higher than those placed through the mobile site.
Android was the popular platform with 80 per cent transactions happening over the operating system, followed by iOS at 20 per cent. Launched in February 2010, Snapdeal has about 30,000 sellers on board. It claims to have over 25 million members who can buy products across more than 500 product categories. Snapdeal is backed by investors eBay, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and IndoUS Venture Partners.
