Looking to capture a bigger pie of Indian ecommerce that extends beyond retail, Snapdeal is reportedly in talks with commutech giant Uber.
If the partnership goes through, Snapdeal customers will be able to book an Uber ride through the Snapdeal app.
Snapdeal, through its acquisition of Freecharge 2 years ago, already has brought telecom recharges, bill payments and a wallet into the fold. Though, this development comes close on the heels of Snapdeal integrating Zomato, Redbus and Cleartrip into the app through which a user can now book bus tickets, order food and make travel arrangements, other than shopping on Snapdeal’s etail platform, all on the same app. This was rolled out to a few select customers at first, and then to all. The Uber integration is also likely to follow the same model. The Uber partnership will also be the first Indian – International partnership for Snapdeal.
Though the company is yet to make an official announcement on the Uber deal, the move fits perfectly in Snapdeal’s aim to become a one-stop- shop app, which lets its users do more than just shop for products, while for Uber, the deal might just provide a philip against local rival and cabs-app leader Ola, whom it claimed it can beat “in a month”. Curiously, Snapdeal’s co-founder was all praise for Ola recently.
Great experience using OLA Prime today! Came fast. Nice, clean car w/ courteous driver. @Olacabs @bhash
— Kunal Bahl (@1kunalbahl) March 3, 2016
Snapdeal is in a fierce competitive battle with local rivals Flipkart and Paytm, who too, are making big strides to go beyond e-tail. Flipkart recently launched a payment wallet, while Paytm has been on a rapid expansion spree with add-ons like bus and movie tickets, and most recently, flight bookings on its own app.
Interestingly both Snapdeal and Paytm are funded by Chinese ecommerce giant, Alibaba. Superapps are common in China, and it will be interesting to see if Alibaba will try to bring its country’s best practices to its investments in India.