Snapdeal, Yepme, Stayzilla in Coma: Indian Startups Dying Soon?

Indian Startups are in comatose stage as the year 2017 starts. Online portals really need to revive their skills  for survival of the fittest.

Snapdeal to lay off 600 people next week

SoftBank-backed Snapdeal off around 600 people across its e-commerce, logistics and payments operations over the next few days.

According to sources, the company started the process last week and will lay off 500-600 people across Snapdeal, Vulcan (logistics) and Freecharge (digital payments business). The sources added that the reduction will include employees across levels and the process will be completed in the next few days.

A Snapdeal spokesperson said: “On our journey towards becoming India’s first profitable e-commerce company in two years, it is important that we continue to drive efficiency across all parts of our business, which enables us to pass on the value to our consumers and sellers.”

“We have realigned our resources and teams to further these goals and drive high-quality business growth,” the spokesperson added. The company had last reported employee strength of 8,000 people.

Snapdeal, which has been locked in an intense battle with rivals Amazon and Flipkart,  struggling to raise fresh capital. Snapdeal has already taken a number of steps to increase optimization of operations that resulted in 35 per cent lower delivery costs and 25 per cent lower company fixed costs.

Yepme Delays salary

Yepme is another shopping portal which is going through tough times. Delhi based VAS Data Services Pvt. Ltd is a parent company to Yepme.com. Another associated company Growthways Trading Pvt. Ltd, is also affected.

The company has shrink its manpower by 80-90% and forcing entire teams to resign.

Employees are asking HR department to lay them off properly under rules so, they could get benefits of severance package. The management has, however, not made any official communication regarding layoffs or a shutdown.

Employees has alleged Yepme for delay in salaries since October. The Yepme founder did not deny it, but said that salaries are delayed only for the month of January.

“Nov-Dec salaries were duly deposited. January salaries were delayed partly because of the full-and-final settlement for outgoing employees, and due to impact of demonetization,” Vivek Gaur said.

Stayzilla shuts Operations

Chennai-based online hotel room aggregator Stayzilla is shutting down operations owing to tougher competition from bigger rivals and a tighter business environment. The company which started in 2005 and raised about USD 33 million in funding was one of the earliest hotel room aggregators much before GoStays, Oyo Rooms, Airbnb and Treebo entered the market. In a blog post, Stayzilla CEO and founder Yogi Vasupal wrote this: “I would like to announce today that we would be bringing to a halt the operations of Stayzilla in its current form. This has been one of the toughest decisions that I have taken so far but it is the right thing to do.” Vasupal had started the company as a dropout straight out of college in 2005. “The hardest part is saying goodbye to a perfect team that has accomplished a lot by putting Homestays on the map of India. Whatever and how much ever I write about them is not going to do justice to their commitment,” he wrote.