Snapdeal to enter FMCG sector, start 4-hour deliveries

Snapdeal, the e-commerce marketplace, has made a grand entry into the Indian FMCG market. Alongside this, as a pilot project, the company has also started four-hour assured delivery of the products in Gurgaon. If the pilot is a success, Snapdeal plans to implement in other big cities as well.
Excepting fresh produce – vegetables and fruits – the company will deal in all household goods and consumables. The growing demand for premium FMCG products and large packs, especially in tier II and III markets with increasing consumption power, has prompted Snapdeal to expand the access of goods, without undertaking any distribution arbitrage.
Snapdeal has set a target of 20 million consumer transactions everyday by 2020. The e-commerce marketplace hopes to make itself a single habit app for all consumption needs.
Success Story
Snapdeal was started by Kunal Bahl, a Wharton graduate as part of the dual degree M&T Engineering and Business program at Penn, and Rohit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Delhi in February 2010. Snapdeal currently has 275,000 sellers, 30 million-plus products and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities across the country.
Investors
Investors in the company include SoftBank Corp, Ru-Net Holdings, Tybourne Capital, PremjiInvest, Alibaba, Temasek Holdings, Bessemer Venture Partners, IndoUS Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Saama Capital, Foxconn Technology Group, Blackrock, eBay, Nexus Ventures, Intel Capital, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Singapore-based investment entity Brother Fortune Apparel and Ratan Tata. When Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in an equity deal, investors Sequoia Capital India, Valiant Capital, Sofina, Ru-Net Holdings, and Tybourne Capital also became shareholders in Snapdeal.
Acquisitions
Since its inception, Snapdeal has forayed into different verticals by acquiring companies like Grabbon.com, esportsbuy.com, Shopo.in, Doozton.com, Wishpicker.com, Smartprix.com, Exclusively.in, Unicommerce.com, RupeePower, FreeCharge.com and Reduce Data.