Growth comes at a price for Flipkart, Amazon & Snapdeal

Explosive growth has come at a steep price for Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal. Their combined losses surged to Rs 11,754 crore in FY16 from Rs 6,021 crore in FY15 while revenue doubled to Rs 6,802 crore.

Total online retail gross sales (or gross merchandise value) was estimated at $14-16 billion at the end of 2016, up from $11 billion in 2015 and $3-4 billion in 2014.

Also read: Losses of Flipkart, Amazon & Snapdeal would have paid for 24 ISRO Mars missions

Online marketplaces earn a percentage of this GMV as revenue. Madhav Chanchani takes a look at how these marketplaces stack up and where the cash is being spent.