Microsoft has opened up a new brand store on Snapdeal through which it will be selling its Lumia smartphones, Surface Pro tablets, Office and other software, accessories among other things.
The announcement of the opening of the new brand store came directly from Microsoft through twitter. “Get the best of Microsoft products & services on our new brand store on @snapdeal” tweeted Microsoft India.
Though the company is already selling almost all its products through the regular retail market in India a digital store would definitely give the company direct access to the ever growing consumer electronics and software market in India.
The company isn’t selling a whole lot through the Snapdeal brand store yet. Current there are 10 Lumia smartphones, 31 mobile cases and covers and 2 tablets listed for sale. However, the two Surface Pro 3 tablets that have been listed have been marked as “sold out”.
The company has a lot more listings for its software, accessories and peripheral offerings. Microsoft Office 365, Windows 7, Office Home and Student, Office 2013 are some of the products on the software front. The company is also selling games and consoles through its brand store.
One of the primary reasons for Microsoft to jump the online store bandwagon is the increasing popularity of e-commerce in India due to ever increasing internet subscriber base in India. Brick and mortar retailers are already feeling the heat of online-only retailers like Flipkart and Snapdeal and with major multinationals like Amazon also joining the race, e-commerce in the country has only one direction to go – Up!
