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E-commerce major Snapdeal and the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp are tying up to sell the latter’s products online.
Snapdeal began sales of Hero MotoCorp’s scooter – Maestro – price starting at ₹46,700 exclusively on its website, coinciding with the ‘Great Online Shopping Festival’ initiated by Google India on Tuesday.
The home-grown e-commerce company is already been selling automobiles and two-wheelers with exclusive partnership tie-ups with Mahindra & Mahindra for Scorpio, Centuro motorcycle and Rodeo scooter, and Hero Electric’s scooters since early last year.
Snapdeal will sell more brands from HeroCorp’s stable, including its best-selling motorcycles such as Splendor Plus, Passion Pro, Ignitor, Karizma among others.
“We will be selling motorcycles of Hero MotoCorp and a few new products on our website. An announcement will be made soon,” Abhishek Passi, Vice-President, Business Strategy, Snapdeal, told BusinessLine .
In the automobile space, including the auto accessories, the online company is doing gross merchandise value of around ₹15 crore a month, he said.
Passi said the company is doing well in auto accessories, including tyres and in-car entertainment systems, with many brands tying up to sell their products. Customers just have to order the product online and the nearest dealer of the particular automobile company delivers the vehicles with invoice and other papers.
Snapdeal said automobile sales through its website are going steady and have even touched 100 units a day during the peak time, especially during the first few days of the launches.
However, industry veterans and analysts, said automobiles sale through online markets is just in a test phase right now, and may become a big trend only in future.
Test phase“We are selling only around 20 units a month through Snapdeal. But, it is a steady business right now and we are meeting our expectations of selling our electric scooters online,” Sohinder Singh Gill, Chief Executive Officer - Global Business, Hero Electric India, said.
He said it is a good initiative right now, but is also difficult to manage as many dealers do not agree to deliver a product in remote areas. Therefore, the company itself has to manage, sometimes, even at a loss, because it can’t lose such customers.
The company is also taking care of services after selling electric scooters through mobile service vans in rural areas, he added.
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