The Financial Express (Delhi Edition)
Shopclues shops for market share at Sunday Flea Market
New Delhi, July 5: Shopclues, which is a marketplace for unstructured and unbranded products is betting big on its 'Sunday Flea Market' as it offer good margins to the sellers who sell on this platform. The company is undeterred by fierce competition emerging from bigger e-commerce firms such as Flikart, Snapdeal and Amazon.
“The margin son the products which are sold in the flea market are very high,they are to the tune of 50-80%,” Nitin Kochhar, vice president of category at Shopclues told FE. But he declined to share what Shop clues is earning from the sellers.
Following the trend, Paytm has also launched its Pay tm Sunday Bazaar to capture consumers shopping in the lowpriced category. The price range at Sunday Bazaar starts at R9.
According to a study by Red Seer Consulting , Shopcluesheld 5-7% market share by GMV in calendaryear2015,whichhasincreasedasonMarch2016.In2015, ShopclueswastrailingFlipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal but was ahead of Paytm which held 4-6% of industry's GMV.
“Traffic is more on Sunday, conversions are better on Sunday. So,the order volume is much higher on a Sunday. In Sunday flea market, we work with a few sellers where we are sure of the product quality, which are largely our top rates merchants,” Kochhar said. Like consumers, Shopclues has almost 70% of its sellers from the tier II and tier III cities.
According to market experts, the model of flea markethascontributed significantly to the spike in Shopclues' market share. “Shopclues has a market offering that is more localised compared to its competitors and has a greater appeal among consumers in tier II market. To increase the market share they would focus on increasing volume and the number of orders on Sunday flea market,” said Mrigank Gutgutia, engagement manageratRedSeerConsulting.
“We have approximately 2,000 products which we sell on the Sunday flea market across categories such as home, fashion, electronics, etc. All the products are less than R1,000 and the offering starts at R15,” Kochhar said.