Snapdeal Emerges Out As The Fastest Of Them All Snapdeal outpacing Flipkart and Amazon in tern of providing the fastest deliveries.
By Ritu Kochar
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In the race to be the fastest, Snapdeal has emerged as the winner by providing the fastest deliveries in the Indian ecommerce space. With this Snapdeal, India's largest marketplace in terms of sellers has outpaced its peers, which include, Flipkart, the country's largest ecommerce company, and Amazon India.
Citing a report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Red Seer Consulting, Snapdeal said that it was leading the race of delivering products with an average delivery time of 3.9 days, followed by Amazon at 4.1 days and Flipkart at 5.1 days.
In an official statement, the company said that it is faster than Amazon by at least 1-1.5 days across metros and tier-2 and tier-3 cities and even wider with Flipkart, trailing Snapdeal by 2-2.5 days in big and small cities. "The PwC report shows that Snapdeal commits for delivery in 5 days in Metro and Tier 1 cities, as opposed to Amazon and Flipkart's commitment of nearly 6.5 days. In Tier 2 and Tier-3 cities, Snapdeal commits to deliver in 6 days, while Amazon promises delivery between 7-8 days and Flipkart takes longer at 8-9 days," the press release said.
The report by PwC follows the one released by Red Seer in April. It is based on delivery benchmarking exercises for categories, such as, electronics and apparel, which contribute up to 75% of the total sales recorded by ecommerce sector. The statement further stated, "35 SKUs with assured availability across three major players - Snapdeal, Amazon and Flipkart, were serviced from their respective fulfillment centres and tracked across 119 delivery pin-codes in Tier-1, 2 and 3 cities. The comprehensive mapping of average delivery time found Snapdeal to be the leader in on-time delivery across regions."
Arming themselves for the battle for dominance in the eCommerce industry, Snapdeal strengthened its supply chain and logistics by spending an additional $100 million. This was in addition to the $200 million that the company had said it would spend, as a built up capacity to fulfill 1,000 orders a minute, with the specific goal of being able to fulfill 10,000 orders a minute at peak time.
With successful results at hand, Jayant Sood, chief customer experience officer at Snapdeal said, "The recognition of our best-in- class delivery experience by PwC and Red Seer, is a resounding validation of our efforts to build robust logistical capabilities using both technology and partnerships."
Not just delivery, the Red Seer report indicated that Snapdeal also had 99% delivery accuracy, indicating that 99% of the orders get delivered in the time committed by the company at the time of order booking. The consulting firm had conducted a mystery shopping exercise, by tracking 6,000 orders across 25 cities.
The company said that this is the result adding 2 million square feet of warehousing space spread over 25 cities and built 63 fulfillment centres to increase its reach to new geographies. It has partnered with over 20 specialized logistics companies, creating a delivery network that reaches 28,000 pin codes.
Rejoicing the fruits of their efforts Sood added, "The ability to promise quick deliveries and consistently deliver within that is an important part of our mission to create India's most reliable and frictionless commerce ecosystem."