HP Snapfish, Indiaplaza sign partnership

BANGALORE, INDIA: With the Indian e-commerce industry expected to grow at 30 percent annually, HP Snapfish has entered into an partnership with Indiaplaza to strengthen its leadership as the country’s largest online photo center. Now customers can upload all photo images and even get the prints delivered any where across the country.

HP Snapfish, which launched its services in India last year has presently about 300,000 registered users in India and printed over 1.5 billion photo snaps last year.

Talking to CIOL, Bala Parthasarathy, managing director of HP Snapfish (Asia-Pacific) says, “The increase in the broadband penetration and also in the camera and mobile across the country, India’s online shopping phenomenon is poised to pick up strongly.” HP’s tie-up will enable many customers from the Indiaplaza fold to enjoy a world-class online photo services and a unique shopping experience at HP Snapfish, allowing them to create and buy personalized products instantly. More ever we are offering a 4x6 size snaps for Rs 2.95 only that is comparability much cheaper than the others, adds Parthasarathy.

According to industry reports, the e-commerce industry is estimated at Rs 1,200 crore for the fiscal 2008-09 and a recent Nielson Global Online Survey on Indian online shopping habits indicates that 78 percent of the Indian respondents accessing Internet, have used Internet to make a purchase and close to 55 percent respondents have made at least one online purchase in the past one month.

“This shows the potential India offers in the online space,” says Ben Nelson, general manager, HP Snapfish. “We are present in 21 countries but India is very significant to us since out of the 600 global employees, 400 are present in India. This signifies that right from customer services, marketing, product design to system maintenance and R&D all is done in India,” adds Nelson.  

The company also proposes to start on online video uploads services shortly. In fact, Nelson says that the company in the US has already launched its online videos services about 2.5 years ago and is rolling it out this service across the globe in a phased manner.

K. Vaitheeswaran, chief operating officer, Indiaplaza.in says, “we are purely a e-commerce portal site and have over 1 million customers of which 85 percent are from India. The exclusive partnership with HP Snapfish to launch a co-branded digital photo center is yet another step in bring world-class brands and services in the online space.”