MAM
Snapdeal targets low-end value shoppers in strategic shift
KOLKATA: It has been more than six months since the onset of the pandemic. While most businesses have taken a major hit, e-commerce has been have a rollicking time with a further boost projected during this festive season.
A recent report from ReedSeer Consulting said that goods with a gross merchandise value of $3.1 billion were sold by e-commerce companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, and Snapdeal in less 4.5 days of starting their festive sales. Snapdeal’s Kum Mein Dum sale, which concluded on 20 October, saw a massive adoption in smaller cities. Eager to hold on to this fresh inflow of shoppers, the platform is widening the depth of the value segment, said Snapdeal communications & corporate affairs SVP Rajnish Wahi.
He explained that a large part of the audience the company targets is in tier-2, tier-3 and beyond. Moreover, many of them have high aspirations but limited disposable incomes. After fulfilling basic expenditures, they may not have Rs 10,000 to buy a pair of shoes at the end of a month. But they shop often, mostly in local outlets. “Our target is to bring the same collection online which they would possibly go to local markets for,” he said, adding that most products on the platform are priced between Rs. 250-2,000.
The e-tailer has added 10,000 small and local sellers and manufacturers in the last couple of months.
Along with creating the value shopping segment, Snapdeal is also trying to make the service easier and more accessible for buyers of all shades and income levels. As a number of them are not comfortable with English, it has also added eight Indian local languages to its user interface. 30 per cent of the overall users opt for the UI in vernacular languages. Not only can they shop in their mother tongue, but also get promotional messages in that language as well.
“India is a very heterogeneous market. At first, the 80-100 million who came online were largely urban, English-speaking with high disposable incomes. In the second phase, up to 300-400 million are going digital, and these people have different tech-awareness, different language preferences, and lower disposable income. Those who seek to discover, who want to explore further are our target segment. What differentiates us is the depth of merchandise in our "value" segment,” said Wahi.
He emphasised that owing to its good brand awareness and high recall value, Snapdeal is among the top three e-commerce players in India.
With the change in its business strategy, Snapdeal has also started going hell for leather by investing increasingly in digital marketing, especially on social media. Wahi explained that the platform has moved beyond the brand-building phase and is now looking at a more targeted, result oriented marketing strategy. While social media can also help to explain a product, it’s word of mouth that greatly helps a discovery-led platform like Snapdeal, he added.
Will visitors make a great deal out of Snapdeal's broadbasing strategy?-
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
