The company aims to bring in a million on-board sellers in the next three years.
Online marketplace player Snapdeal will support small and medium enterprises (SME) and merchants with up to Rs 1,000-crore ‘capital assist’ loan over the next six months, the company said on Tuesday.
Ahead of the festive season, the move will help the company expand its seller base.
Snapdeal, which currently has 200,000 sellers on its portal, aims to bring in a million on-board in the next three years.
“We have taken a number of initiatives like seller training programmes, seller financing programmes - capital assist and Snapdeal seller advisor programme,” said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and chief executive of Snapdeal, at the launch of a report on impact of e-commerce on SMEs.
“Diwali is creating a natural demand for capital. Also, we have had zero non-performing assets till now which shows SMEs want to perform and grow in the e-commerce setup,” he added.
Ideally, capital assist should not exist, Bahl said. “If the eco-system of finances was friction-free enough, e-commerce companies need not get into the system of facilitating finances.”
For the report, Snapdeal and market research firm KPMG jointly conducted a study, which claims e-commerce in India is driving the growth of SMEs, which in turn is contributing to new job opportunities and GDP contribution.
“At Snapdeal, we are working towards building the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in the country and SMEs form the foundation of this ecosystem in many ways,” said Bahl.
The report also states that the e-commerce sector in India is projected to cross $80 billion by 2020.
The study examined the macro-impact of the sector on the growth of SMEs and identified remaining gaps in the ecosystem that needed to be plugged.
According to the report, 85 per cent of SMEs that adopted e-commerce believe it is a cost-effective medium for sales growth.
The study also claimed SMEs, which actively adopt the internet for business activities, get 51 per cent higher revenues, which results in 49 per cent more profit and a seven per cent broader consumer base than their offline counterparts.
The study highlighted the importance of SMEs in the country, which accounted for 17 per cent of the GDP in 2014 and contributed to 45 per cent of the nation's industrial output and 40 per cent of the total exports.
It also claimed SMEs are capable of creating 1.3 million jobs in a year.
“The fast-paced growth of the e-commerce industry in India represents an unprecedented opportunity for SMEs. We hope the findings of this report will assist policymakers, industry bodies and e-commerce companies strengthen the support ecosystem, which enables SMEs to ride the e-commerce growth wave successfully,” said Richard Rekhy, chief executive of KPMG India.
