Snapdeal looks at turning profitable in two years

Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal is confident that the company, one of India’s leading e-tailers, will be profitable in two years. The company has adequate funds in the bank to sustain it for the next five years. Bansal was at his alma mater IIT-Delhi to promote entrepreneurship and in the course of his interactions, he replied to various questions fielded by the students.

Snapdeal has raised 1.8 billion dollars (around Rs 2,000 crores) but still not made a profit. Recently, there was news of the company cutting down staff. Bansal, however, presented an optimistic outlook. He pointed out that he wanted to make ‘e-commerce a daily habit and for that the experience has to be seamless’.

Snapdeal is adding new services to its mobile app such as flights, buses and food ordering. Also, the company is working on personalising the user experience and Uberising technology. Looking at the future, Bansal pointed out that the next big thing in e-commerce will be online to offline platform. As he said, the line between online and offline is blurring and already lot of business is coming their way through this trend.

In the pipeline is a push to Snapdeal’s payments platform. Earlier this year, the company launched recharge and payments within the app. More than a million have used it by recharging their phones by using it. The e-tailer is working on a single window/button which would enable one to pay all bills.