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How E-Commerce Companies are Providing Financial Technologies to SMEs

We spoke to Vishal Chadha, Senior Vice-President, Market Development SnapDeal, about the countless impediments Indian SMEs face and how latest E-Commerce technologies can assist them in conducting their businesses

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Nijhum Rudra
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Over the past few years, the small traders and manufacturers have been touched by e-Commerce merchants to get in touch with various prospective consumers and successfully sell their products and services. With this massive ecommerce revolution customers from any part of the country can purchase the latest products without any hassle, most importantly at a competitive price. On the basis of India’s economic thrust, this particular sector is expanding massively and it has been attracting the SMEs and other customers on a wider scale.

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Today, with the help of cutting-edge technology and financial assistance from e-Commerce service providers, about 4.6 crore SMEs in India manufacture more than 6,000 products, contribute 8 per cent to GDP, and 45 per cent of industrial output. In addition, they contribute to 40 per cent of exports, and employ nearly 10.6 crore people. In spite of this imperative improvement, the SMEs have been constrained due to insufficient market data. E-commerce portals are altering this trend by offering the SMBs cost-effective, financial technologies to increase the revenue.

Offering Financial Support

With focus on creating an ecosystem that enables businesses to sell online, Snapdeal launched Capital Assist last year. This is a Fintech platform which assists ecommerce merchants in meeting their working capital requirement and scale their businesses. This year, the company has launched an instant loan approval facility on Capital Assist. With this initiative, Snapdeal sellers can avail unsecured loans up to Rs. 1 crore from financers at the click of a button. Under Capital Assist programme, so far 1000 SMBs have availed loans amounting to more than Rs 250+ crores.

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“Snapdeal has committed $200 million towards building a digital ecosystem for small and medium businesses in India and a large part of this investment has already been made towards seller enablement and training. With this investment and with a network of over 2,00,000 sellers, our company is aiming to create 1 million successful online entrepreneurs by 2017.” says, Vishal Chadha, Senior Vice-President, Market Development SnapDeal.

Technological Support to SMEs by Snapdeal

Snapdeal recently launched a new platform ‘Sherpalo’ to further enhance its seller experience. This platform provides a single window access to all seller services like on-boarding, training, product listing, inventory, order and returns management, advertising, third party services, capital assistance and help centre, making it more convenient for them to manage and optimise their online operations. With this platform, the company’s efforts are to use technology to help its sellers grow successfully and scale their business effectively. The guiding principle behind introducing this easy and intuitive panel is our promise of ‘Online Business Made Easy’.fcThe new seller platform provides world class experience with complete visibility and better planning tools to enable the sellers to manage their businesses even better, leading to higher business growth, liquidity and profitability. The company is committed to creating life changing experiences for more than 1 million sellers by 2017 and this is an important stepping stone towards the goal.

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“Technology is the backbone of ecommerce industry and has created new ways in which businesses can relate to their customers, suppliers, partners and investors.”

Vishal Chadha Senior Vice-President, Market Development SnapDeal Vishal Chadha

Senior Vice-President,

Market Development SnapDeal

“Technology is the backbone of ecommerce industry and has created new ways in which businesses can relate to their customers, suppliers, partners and investors.”

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Helping SMEs to Leverage Technology

“Technology is the backbone of ecommerce industry and has created new ways in which businesses can relate to their customers, suppliers, partners and investors,” says Chadha. Snapdeal is partnering with various state governments and organisations to deliver on its commitment of creating life changing experiences for its sellers in India and empowering thousands of small and medium businesses. The company has partnered with the Himachal Pradesh government to launch India’s first special e-commerce zone in Dharamshala that will invigorate the local economy by creating e-commerce entrepreneurs, outsourcing to local BPOs and promoting traditional state handicrafts. The special ecommerce zone by Snapdeal provides digital training that further endeavours to create business expansion and employment opportunities for the residents.

The other initiatives to support seller enablement and training—Snapdeal Professional Services Panel, which provides the company’s sellers instant access to services like tax registration, photography, cataloguing, business consulting and outsourcing support from verified service providers. The other is SD Advisor that helps to increase the level of engagement and hand holding for established or new sellers. The most innovative is Snapdeal Ads platform that provides sellers and brands the ability to launch promotional campaigns via online advertisements and Capital Assist, which provides working capital to small businesses. These initiatives are undertaken to help sellers with the necessary infrastructure and provide financial aid to scale their business. “Snapdeal will continue to promote entrepreneurship and empower the country’s small and medium businesses with a platform to get direct market access and tap wider opportunities. Additionally, the company’s seller zone application is helping sellers manage their inventory and orders on mobile,” added Chadha.

e-commerce
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