Blackouts, Dodgy Sellers Are Part of Life Making India’s Alibaba

The blackouts don’t faze Rohit Bansal. The co-founder of Snapdeal.com is talking in a worn conference room at his company’s New Delhi headquarters, and when the lights go out he simply flicks on his smartphone to illuminate the room. Outside, employees feel their way through darkened hallways.

Bansal is fixated on the prospects of building an online retailer in India comparable to Amazon.com Inc. or Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Commerce in the country is chaotic, he explains, while the population of more than a billion people has rising incomes and is desperate for a better way to shop.