Online player ShopClues, which deals in unbranded and unstructured products, reported a more than three-fold jump in its net losses to Rs 383 crore for the year ended March 31, 2016, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). Total revenue during the period jumped almost two times to Rs 178 crore.
“Around 10% of our current revenue comes from monetization and seller services. We launched seller initiatives like C1X, Reach PoS, Business Edge etc, to add to our non-transactional revenues. We plan to grow this to 30% by next year,” said Nitin Kochhar, vice president of category at ShopClues.
According to documents filed with RoC, business activities that constitute more than 10% of the total revenue include advertising and marketing services of the company contributing about 30% to the total revenue and services such as computer programming, commission and fulfillment contribute 64% to total revenue.
Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder and chief business officer of ShopClues pegged the gross merchandise value at $1.2 billion for the period. Categories such as fashion & lifestyle and home & kitchens comprise 50-55% of the sales while mobile electronic accessories lead 35% share in the top-line.
Expenses of ShopClues rose 210% to Rs 561.6 crore during the period. Employee benefit expenses rose by 168% to Rs 61.8 crore and the advertising promotional expenses rose more than 300% to Rs 236.8 crore.
“We invested majorly this year in our marketing initiatives and technology, to not only acquire more customers but enhance their overall experience on the platform,” added Kochhar.
Sanjay Sethi, CEO of the company said that it is nine months away from profitability and a top-line of $2 billion will get it at profitability. Earlier this year, ShopClues had entered the unicorn club with valuation of $1.1 billion and mopped around $100-120 million from GIC, Tiger Global Management and Nexus Venture Partners in Series E funding in January.
