Why did Indian ecommerce major Snapdeal acquire smart gifting platform Wishpicker?

Ecommerce companies in India are now in a race not just to expand to new categories and regions, but also to acquire new tech tools that would give them an edge in converting site visitors into loyal customers. A recommendation engine that utilizes personal data of a user’s online behavior to suggest what products to show her – thereby tailoring her experience on the ecommerce site – is one such weapon.

Building recommendation engines in-house from scratch requires a dedicated team of engineers well-versed in data analytics and consumer behavior – and that is not a core function for an ecommerce site. The easier way to get the capability is to acquire a startup which has cracked it already. That’s why Indian ecommerce marketplace Snapdeal bought Wishpicker, a startup that uses intelligent recommendation engines to come up with gifting options.

The timing of the acquisition couldn’t be better, with the holiday season of Christmas and New Year around the corner.

After its whopping funding round of US$627M from Japan’s SoftBank, Snapdeal is arming itself better to fight competitors like Flipkart and Amazon.

Wishpicker’s sharp algorithms recommend what to gift by taking into account parameters like the user’s relationship with the recipient, their age, personality, interests and likes exhibited on social media platforms like Facebook, and so on. The one-year-old startup was founded by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi graduates Apurv Bansal and Prateek Rathore.

The acquisition of Wishpicker gives Snapdeal a quick boost to further personalize user experience and drive conversions through intelligent recommendations, the company said in a statement. Rohit Bansal, co-founder of Snapdeal, said:

We are investing in strengthening our technology platform and Wishpicker.com is an excellent platform with top-tier entrepreneurial, engineering talent and fits in perfectly with our vision. This is an important acquisition for us in terms of adding new technology capabilities and helping sellers connect with buyers in newer ways.

Earlier this year, Snapdeal gobbled up Doozton, a social product discovery site focused on the fashion and lifestyle categories. Doozton was closed down and all traffic to the site have been diverted to Snapdeal.

Wishpicker is Snapdeal’s fifth acquisition. Rival Flipkart too has made several acquisitions in the last few years. It bought social book discovery tool WeRead, digital content platform Mime360, Bollywood news site Chakpak, electronics etailer Letsbuy, and most recently, fashion marketplace Myntra.

See: Is this Flipkart’s secret weapon to beat Amazon?