SNAPDEAL'S FINAL PIVOT

AFTER MULTIPLE PIVOTS AND TEETERING ON THE BRINK OF DEATH, SNAPDEAL IS IN A MAKE-OR-BREAK SITUATION AGAIN, SEEKING TO CEMENT ITS PLACE IN VALUE COMMERCE. IT HAS ONE SHOT AND IT CANNOT LET THIS OPPORTUNITY GO

- BINU PAUL

AFTER A PROLONGED hiatus from the limelight following the dramatic collapse of a merger with rival Flipkart and the subsequent unveiling of the ‘2.0 journey’ in 2017, Snapdeal was back in the spotlight in 2021 with a surprising announcement. It said it would go public. But things didn’t pan out that way, and it shelved that plan just a year later.

Of course, market conditions were primarily to blame for the IPO’s withdrawal. But this loss of heart mirrored the company’s 16-year journey in some ways—a tale of grand plans gone awry and a gnawing sense of untapped potential. In the world of Snapdeal, the only constant is surprise.

When Snapdeal walked away from the negotiation table with Flipkart, it needed to devise industry-beating operational efficiencies, cut down on cash burn, and build a steady funding pipeline to even attempt a turnaround.

“It was an audacious move. To say that e-commerce in India is a high-intensity and high-cash-burn endeavour would be an understatement. I recall during that period, I woke up one morning to a well-wisher’s message that a VC told him, ‘Snapdeal will not see a day of 2018 and will definitely shut down before the end of 2017’,” Co-founder Kunal Bahl wrote in a LinkedIn post in 2018.

But Bahl and his school friend Rohit Bansal did chart a turnaround. It would completely change course. It would look at value commerce. It would focus on the non-English-speaking, non-digital native, nonaffluent majority of India’s population in Tier II cities and beyond.