India’s largest online marketplace ‘Snapdeal’ has established its data sciences center in San Carlos, California. Snapdeal’s aim is focusing on adding and retaining high-quality users, defined as frequent shoppers purchasing high-margin products, to quantify growth. Snapdeal also wants to build its presence outside domestic borders.
According to an official statement released by the company, “the centre will act as the focal point for the online retailer’s efforts in big data & advanced analytics, and will shape the SoftBank, Foxconn and Alibaba Group-backed Snapdeal’s business strategy, by looking to ‘optimise the operational efficiencies using data-driven algorithms, data analytics and predictive modelling’.”
The chief operating officer of Snapdeal Mr. Rohit Bansal said, “We have set up a Data Science engine in California, which is home to domain talent, to augment further our efforts in creating a superior customer experience and strengthen our supply chain. Snapdeal is extensively working on data mining through an existing analytics team.”
The data sciences center will lead by Nitin Sharma, senior vice president at Snapdeal said, “We have a highly accomplished team which can distil key patterns, consumer preferences, and hidden correlations by quickly analyzing large quantities of data. We will bring fresh insights to the existing work and will enhance customer experience through better planning and forecasting.” However, he did not disclose the number of hires made by the company for the center. Snapdeal has been looking to establish its presence in the US for some time now.
Further, Mr. Bansal added, “The richer understanding of the customers by capturing and integrating the information on their buying behavior will drive habit commerce and is in sync with our vision of 20 million daily transacting users by the year 2020.”
Snapdeal’s vision is to create India’s most reliable and frictionless commerce ecosystem that create life-changing experiences for buyers and sellers. With millions of users and more than 300,000 retailers, the company is the shopping destination for Internet users across the country, delivering to 6000+ cities and towns in India. In its journey till now, the firm has partnered with several global marquee investors and individuals such as SoftBank, BlackRock, Temasek, Foxconn, Alibaba, eBay Inc., Premji Invest, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Mr. Ratan Tata, among others.
