Debt is basically taking VC money. There is no way of paying it back, unless they go IPO. Paying it back through profits is a dead end here. People in India are just too price conscious, offer them gracious discounts and they will come to you. The day you stop they go where ever those discounts are. On the other hand they have tried playing the 'exclusive store' game. Its just not scalable, and whoever is try to sell eventually realizes they need a broader audience reach, and bailout immediately.

Now even if they have to go IPO they can't do it with their current financials. No public investor is going to put their money in a company whose first $15 - $20 billion in collection will go all to bail out VCs and remainder will go to subsidize customers's purchases.

Snapdeal is already toast. The real deal is you can't make losses forever, you have to make profits at some point and you have to make a lot of that to make up for early investors.

Ola and Uber are a totally gone case as far as India is concerned. Almost every family here owns scooters, and those who don't will take Uber and Ola as long as they beat auto rickshaw fares.

So here is the dilemma. Whether its Flipkart, Ola or Snapdeal. You are competing with road side hawkers and their profit margins. You can see where this is going.

Its just that India's purchasing power among the common middle class masses has to go up, and they need to stop thinking in terms of 'price first' approach. That won't happen anytime soon.