Snapdeal has announced its foray into television commerce with the launch of DEN Snapdeal TV shop — a 50:50 joint venture with DEN — a television distribution company.
The channel has already gone live on DEN cable network and will be extended to other cable and DTH networks in six months.
The channel will target customers particularly in the tier I and II cities, who are dogged by limited internet access and lack of premium brands in their neighbourhood. Every product sold on the channel will have a quality and delivery assurance from Snapdeal and an option to pay on delivery.
“India is a country with many heterogeneous segments of consumers, and we believe that by reaching 150 million households with 600 million people that have a TV, we can create another revolution through TV commerce,” said Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl.
DEN Snapdeal TV shop was launched as a pilot in September last year and has been growing 200% month-on-month since inception. The pilot was launched in select geographies offering products in primarily the home and kitchen, electronics and fashion and lifestyle segments. DEN Networks reaches about 13 million households in over 200 cities across 13 states.
Snapdeal aims to take the DEN Snapdeal TV shop to 100 million households over the next 12 months.
“By leveraging Snapdeal and DEN’s nationwide distribution network, we will now be able to engage with a much larger audience which is still not exposed to the benefits of online shopping and internet access. The response to the pilot has been extremely encouraging and we are sure DEN Snapdeal TV Shop will be well received by our viewers,” said Sameer Manchanda, CMD, DEN Networks.
The new channel will have to battle it out with Naaptol, HomeShop18 and StarCJ.