Snapdeal Motors bring online to offline bike dealerships

“With the introduction of the Snapdeal Motors, we are aiming to take this to the next level and provide our customers a holistic buying experience marrying online and offline retail channels. This is going to be a very strong platform that we believe should clock over $2 Bn in sales over the next two years,” said Tony Navin, Senior Vice President, Partnerships and Strategic initiatives.

Navin added that they had seen the tremendous response in tier 2 and tier 3 towns without offering loans and were confident that the category would grow strongly. Snapdeal has tied up with over 5000 dealerships across the country for its automobiles category.

Snapdeal Motors space will function a bit differently from the way rest of the e-commerce platform. For starters, the bike won’t be delivered to your house, and there’s certainly no COD happening here. Snapdeal has however tied up with Rupeepower and should you need a loan while purchasing a bike, you can apply for it via the site itself. Customers can check their SIBIL ratings as well see the best loans options they can get.

While browsing for bikes, customers will have to type in their Pincode to see dealerships that are offering that particular model near that location. Customers can then browse through the various dealerships and pick one that seems convenient and then proceed further with either payments or apply for loan on the portal.

If they wish to make a purchase, they will have to pay a booking amount. The website will then alert them when their bike is ready for pick-up from the dealership. And this convenience, where customers don’t have to visit dealerships across the city, is what Snapdeal hopes will convince more buyers.

Snapdeal’s Chief Product Officer Anand Chandrasekaran said that with the launch of the Automobiles category the company hopes to turn a 30-minute problem into a 30 second one. “If you wish to buy a bike, you might find yourself running from dealership to dealership, trying to get the best deals, offers, and then also have to figure out the loan. That takes considerable amount of time. With Snapdeal automobiles, we are essentially converting this into a 30 second problem as you can just browse the models, dealerships on one platform.”

Snapdeal is also hoping to build on the trust of consumers to ensure that they will come in to make the purchases. “People have started buying mobiles online, even expensive ones, which didn’t happen a few years back. Now we are hoping that this trust will eventually move on to bigger things, like bikes, cars and perhaps even homes,” he added.

Snapdeal Motors will eventually offer ‘Test Drive at Home’ and ‘Doorstep Delivery’ options in the coming weeks, says the company.