Snapdeal.com Extends Assortment to Chocolates and Snacks; Amit Maheshwari, VP-Fashion Merchandising Explains Why

Snapdeal.com, the online marketplace has launched a new Chocolates and Snacks category. This is in-line with the company’s strategy of offering the widest assortment of products online, across a number of different categories.

The launch of this category aims to further increase the assortment on the platform. The Chocolates and Snacks category features chocolates and cookies, ready to cook items, cereals, dips, sauces& spreads, health & energy drinks, tea & coffee, flavours &spices among other products. Around 300 products have been launched on this category from prominent brands like Hershey’s, Funfoods, Bikano, Del Monte, Fragata, Chokola, Ferrero Rocher, Nestle, Kellogg’s and many more.

We got in touch with Amit Maheshwari, Snapdeal's VP-Fashion Merchandising, regarding this unexpected move by Snapdeal.com."This is a big market and it is a known fact that 30% of the business comes from food in the retail market. Packaged food is the fastest growing markets in India and more importantly all consumers will shop for food in one way or the other. Being India's biggest online mall, we didn't want to miss out on this and we wanted

to provide our users with assortment and better accessibility. "When asked about potential competition in the e-commerce, Amit said, "there is a large market here in from the niche portals. Many players have come and many of them have shut shops as well. But none of them have the number of users as us, so I think we have a really good shot at this market."

On future plans of Snapdeal, Amit said "The kind of portfolio that we're looking to build is centered around creating an assortment of things that will be accessible to people easily online. For example, the Lonavla Chikki is something that I really like and getting it offline sitting in Delhi is difficult. We want to create experience for users to get items online that are not easily available online.

"Furthermore, on occasions, people might not have time to send gifts or sweets to their loved ones. Having these items online will allow users to send them these things without actually having to be there. These are a few things that we're looking to do in the near future."

This extension of Snapdeal's assortment is interesting as it leads one to speculate a possible acquisition of a player in the packaged food sector by the online mall.

Until then, check out Snapdeal.com's new chocolate and snacks collection.