The e-commerce industry in India has received another blow. On Wednesday, India’s third biggest e-commerce firm Snapdeal announced that it will be laying off employees. Though the company refrained from giving out exact numbers of people to be given the pink slip, industry insiders expect it to be in the range of 400 to 600.
Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research, the technology research and advisory arm of Greyhound Knowledge Group, refuses to believe that the company didn’t see this coming. “Better planning could have been done. Nowhere in the world do startups lay off so many people [in] one go,” he said.
Gogia says that the massive marketing and advertising campaign undertaken by Snapdeal during the September-October period last year was uncalled for. “At a time when the company was struggling to make revenue, there was no need [for] overindulgence,” he says. “I believe other startups will follow suit and by March more lay offs will be announced in other firms. There isn’t any choice. Companies will have to “right size” themselves.”
[Forbes]