​E-commerce: India's Snapdeal turns to luxury

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Feb 23, 2015

Indian e-commerce giant Snapdeal last Wednesday announced its acquisition of luxury e-commerce site Exclusively. Its goal is to quickly respond to the rapidly growing demand for big brands in the country.

As part of its strategy to capture $2 billion of the fashion industry online sales in India this year, Snapdeal plans on monopolising a large portion of the $13.8 billion that is generated from sales of luxury items in India. The luxury goods opportunity is a big one in India. Snapdeal cites research from KPMG estimating that its value today stands at $14 billion and is growing at 30% year-on-year. KPMG also says that 70% of Indians who buy luxury products prefer to do so in their own country rather than abroad on their travels.

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After raising funding worth $50 million from eBay last year, Snapdeal is counting on Exclusively to convince its 40 million users to give buying luxury items online a try. For its part, Exclusively raised $18.8 million in 2010 to accelerate its own growth.