Snapdeal ties up with UrbanClap to offer personal services on its Android app 

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May 8, 2016

Richa Maheshwari, The Economic Times

Bengaluru, 8 May 2016

Ecommerce platform Snapdeal has integrated UrbanClap inventory in its Android mobile application to launch a personal services category, which will help consumers book services ranging from beauty services at home to wedding photographers.

Anand Chandrasekaran, chief product officer at Snapdeal, tweeted on Sunday: “Urbanclap 80+ services live on Snapdeal android app, joining Zomato, redBus, Cleartrip and Freecharge.”

In March, Snapdeal had launched a pilot programme under which it tied up with Redbus, Zomato and Cleartrip, allowing customers to book bus tickets, flight tickets, hotel tickets and food directly on the application. UrbanClap is a mobile marketplace for services ranging from house cleaning and plumbing to yoga training, beauty care and interior designing.

Such associations give companies like UrbanClap, Cleartrip, Zomato and redBus access to Snapdeal’s user base. Snapdeal gets a commission for each booking made through its platform.

Since personal service is a high frequency category, the tie-ups will also help Snapdeal increase the number of transactions on the platform. Air ticket bookings launched through Cleartrip is a large gross merchandise value (GMV) category, while food ordering through Zomato is a high-frequency category.

“Horizontals are looking at monetising their user base with a focus on GMV and repeat use cases. As funding environment becomes tougher, growth in these metrics will stand out,” a Snapdeal investor had said in March, requesting anonymity.

Recently, the Delhi-based ecommerce company tied up also with real estate developers such as TVS Emerald, Provident Housing and Runwal Group to launch real estate and financial services on its website.

The commissions received on such transactions are not clear. GMV is the overall sales by merchants on an ecommerce platform, without factoring in discounts, out of which an etailer gets 5-20% as margin on an average.

According to experts, ecommerce players are experimenting ways to monetise traffic through fewer cost-intensive models. “These are service-oriented offerings, which won’t take up any extra cost in terms of physical space or logistics and, hence, these players will make a better margin out of it,” said Devangshu Dutta, CEO at retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight. 

(Published in The Economic Times)

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