Shopo, Snapdeal-owned C2C marketplace, now has more than 1,00,000 sellers on its platform, Sandeep Komaravelly, senior vice-president, Snapdeal, said.
The marketplace operates on a zero-commission model unlike its parent Snapdeal but will earn revenues with a host of value-added services that it will soon offer sellers, Komaravelly added.
Komaravelly pointed that currently its focus is on building the platform adding advertising as a major revenue stream. “By end of this financial year our goal is to open a million shops on our platform and from what we have seen in the last three months this goal is achievable,” he added.
Shopo was re-launched by Snapdeal in July 2015 after its acquisition in 2013 and has sellers across 800 cities.
During the launch, Snapdeal had announced an investment of $ 100 million to be used to build the management team and upgrade technology.
Shopo is a mobile-only marketplace created for small and medium-sized sellers who do not have the scope to register on Snapdeal and serve a niche market. “Given that we are having a lot of small sellers coming on our platform we have driven categories like the non-branded fashion accessories, home décor, mobile accessories, and handicrafts,” Komaravelly said.
He declined to give any details of sales that occur on the platform but pegged the average ticket size of a transaction at Rs 1,000. The marketplace operates on a chat model where the seller has the freedom to decide the logistics, pricing of the product, and the mode of payment. Komaravelly said the team does not interfere in the transaction adding the terms are mutually determined by the seller and the buyer.
SMBs can register on the platform without paying a registration fee or commission on sale. “Threat of fake products is a genuine concern at our end. If we find that there is something that cannot be sold online then we inform the sellers about it. We also do a lot of review and rating on the platform which will help buyers decide on the quality of the product and the seller,” Komaravelly said.