E-commerce major Snapdeal, which nets over 70 percent of sales from small towns, is betting big on rural markets and is actively assessing opportunities of partnerships for assisted e-commerce in remote areas. "Rural markets offer a huge untapped potential and we are assessing the opportunities of tie-ups for assisted e-commerce in rural areas very seriously. We also expect a majority of our new customers to come from hinterlands," co-founder and chief executive Kunal Bahl said on Tuesday. "As an e-commerce platform we can solve a real need in rural area as there is a lot of aspiration in rural markets. Over 70 percent of our sales come from Tier II cities and below now," he added. Last year, Snapdeal had started a pilot programme with the help of financial inclusion solutions company Fino PayTech to launch around 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas within a targeted timeline of end 2015. The business model for rural markets is assisted e-commerce, and "not necessarily delivering to customers' houses directly," he said, adding supply chains are still being big issues in smaller towns. Assisted e-commerce is where person comes to a kiosk, places an order and picks it up. read more
