Flipkart hits back at Snapdeal CEO’s tall claims

While Snapdeal Chief Executive Kunal Bahl is certain that his company would grab the top spot in terms of sales overtaking Flipkart, by March 2016, Flipkart Head Mukesh Bansal feels no online retailer in India will be even half of Flipkart's size by that time. Flipkart aims to sell goods worth 10 billion dollars (around Rs 65,000 crores) during fiscal 2016.

The battle to lead India’s ecommerce space thickens as top players are strategising to make the most of forthcoming festive season, when consumer spend increases significantly. The fierce competition among Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon India is backed by the recent funding boosts they have received, which would let them innovate and announce customer-friendly schemes to increase sales. The aim is also to retail consumers with an eye on becoming the first ecommerce venture to turn profitable.

This year, while Snapdeal raised 500 million dollars (over Rs 3,000 crores) from Foxconn, SoftBank and Alibaba, Flipkart has said to have bagged a 700 million dollars (over Rs 4,600 crores) funding boost and Amazon, during its investor call announced that it aims to invest 7 billion dollars (over Rs 46,000 crores) in the country.

Online retailers have been investing a lot of money to woo customers but their deep discounting strategies seem to be backfiring with people waiting for these companies to announce steep discount seasons around special occasions. Goldman Sachs estimates gross losses of 35 percent on GMV by ecommerce firms to win market share.