SnapDeal's Umbrella eCommerce Strategy; Adds Gadgets, Electronics

India's leading deals site SnapDeal.com is following an umbrella e-commerce strategy, and has added lifestyle products and consumer electronics to its daily deals section. "We will be adding lifestyle categories such as watches, fashion accessories like belts and bags and electronics to Snapdeal.com. We will offer deals on products that will still appeal to the masses," said Kunal Bahl, CEO, Jasper Innovative Marketing Solutions, the owner of SnapDeal.

Predictably, deals on mobiles are popular on the site: take for example a 54% discount on LG GW300, a budget phone which has caught the eye of 92,964 people.

The model will continue to remain daily deals, but now with products joining services categories like restaurants, spas, gyms, movies, etc. "It was inevitable that the model of daily deals on services and products merged since the customer is the same," says Bahl.

Since the model is about having a large userbase and selling them all what they want, this strategy may be the right thing to do in order to achieve scale.

However, some questions that the company may need to mull: Are the gadgets being offered the latest models? Are they in demand? How much of a lead does one deals site get before competitive deal sites latch onto the same product?

The space is hot with many deal sites in India trying to grab the eyeballs of deal-hungry Indians. The others in the space include Groupon's SoSasta.com, Delhi-based Dealsandyou.com, Mydala.com, Buzzintown.com, and Koovs.com. Then there are others like Dailydeal.in, Dealivore.com, Khojguru.com, Thekha.com, Scoopstr.com, 24Hoursloot.com, Masthideals.com, Snatchdeals.com, Lootmore.com, 30Sunday.com and Bindasbargain.com. trying to find a place in the sunshine.

SnapDeal expects consumer electronics sales to contribute to 30% of its business by year end. So it's not expected to overtake revenues from deals on services any time soon. It claims to be 'complementing' existing ecommerce players by selling their distress inventory, but it could eat into ecommerce sales of eBay India, IndiaPlaza, Infibeam.com and Flipkart.com.

Groupon India has also adopted an umbrella ecommerce strategy. For more about their plans, read TechCircle.in. New ecommerce sites such as LetsBuy and BuyThePrice will also now face off with Snapdeal, an aggressive competitor.

What's next? Will bundling of deals on products and services work?