Snapdeal will now deliver cash to your home, but only if you live in Bangalore or Gurgaon

Putting a new spin on the words “cash on delivery”, Snapdeal has announced that it will deliver cash to your doorstep via its Cash@Home service. Yes, cash. Money. Actual, valid banknotes. The service, launched in Gurgaon and Bangalore, will be available at a nominal fee of Re. 1. All you have to do is place the order for cash and pay the fee through FreeCharge or your debit card at the time you place it. For now, will only hand out a maximum of Rs 2,000 in cash. In time, a Snapdeal “courier partner” will come to your house with a PoS machine, swipe your card for the amount requested and hand over the cash to you, reports Mashable. Snapdeal claims that this cash is mostly generated from cash on delivery payments that customers make to Snapdeal. The company is calling this service a “goodwill gesture”. Clearly, it’s more than that. This is just Snapdeal cashing in on the whole demonetisation issue in an effort to gain more traction with users. I don’t blame them, any PR is good for them, right? I’m sure people will sign up to Snapdeal just for the convenience of having cash delivered. And who am I to complain if money is reaching me at my home? It’s not like the queues at ATMs have disappeared or that we’re not struggling to get change for the gloriously pink Rs 2,000 notes. Banks like Yes Bank were the first to cash in on this potential well of goodwill, going around cities with its bus ATM and sending stooges with bags of cash and PoS machines. Ola and Yes Bank have also partnered to deliver cash to people via the Ola app, as has Vodafone via its chain of Vodafone stores. Demonetisation has turned into something of a PR campaign and cashing in on the opportunity is just good business sense. I’m surprised there aren’t more copycats.