flipkart.docx

Product And Brand Management Strategy For Flipkart Marketing EssayThis term paper for Product and Brand management is on Flipkart, the online megastore. Online shopping has

to do with the Western nations for quite some time and Indians are very restrained to online shopping. The

quality of goods, credibility of shopper, payment options, delivery time etc are the most important things that

stand in the minds of people wanting to do any online shopping. With users of internet increasing multiple folds

every year, people want to do miracles by sitting before their laptops or home PC. Though Amazon is one of

the earlier players in the industry, it is FLIPKART which is one of the Indian players in this industry which really

brought about the great change in the mindset of Indian population. This term paper outlines the

Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was Sachin Bansal and

Binny Bansal, alumni of IIT,Delhi who started it in 2007. In its initial years, Flipkart focused on online sales of

books but it later expanded to electronic goods and a variety of other products. Flipkart offers multiple payment

methods like credit card, debit card, net banking, e-gift voucher and Cash on Delivery.

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The cash-on-delivery model adopted by Flipkart has proven to be of great significance since the credit card and

net banking penetration is very low in India.

Initially word of mouth marketing was used to popularize their company.

2.New product introductionIn 2007, Flipkart started with selling books. The first book sold at flipkart.com was —John Woods' Leaving

Microsoft to Change the World Today. In 2010, they added to their catalogue, media (including music, movies

and games) and mobile phones and accessories

In 2011, product launches included cameras, computers, pens & office supplies, computer accessories, home

and kitchen appliances, personal care, health care, gaming consoles, audio players and televisions. Flipkart is

currently the only authorized online reseller of iPods in India.

In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the websites Mime360.com and Chakpak.com Later, in

February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store. Flyte, a legal music download service

in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, will offer DRM-free MP3 downloads. Flyte offers browse by language

options where users can download international as well as regional songs. Flipkart has listed the music based

on its genre on the new music store and has given a lot of variety. Users can shop for tracks from various

albums starting at 6 on the store. A purchased song can only be downloaded maximum 4 times on an internet

enabled device. Flyte garners 600K downloads in 5 months

In 2012, product launches includes health & beauty products, Life style products which includes watches, belts,

bags & luggage.

As far as future is concerned, Flipkart will be looking at bigger investments in our supply chain and technology.

In terms of sales they were earlier looking at a figure of $1bn by 2015. But this can be achieved in the next one

to two years. Flipkart will also be looking at entering new categories. Additionally, Flipkart Self-Delivery, which

currently operates in 27 cities, will be further scaled up.

In a landmark move, NH7.in, a platform to discover independent music and leading-edge culture created by

Only Much Louder (OML), has partnered with Flipkart.com to create an exclusive section dedicated to

independent music on the Flipkart digital music store, Flyte. The store will enable independent artists across

the country to sell their music digitally to their fans.

The NH7.in store on Flipkart will be a game changer. Up until now, independent artists had limited avenues to

retail their music to the ever-growing fan base for indie music. The NH7.in community represents the largest

group of indie music lovers in the nation. Now, along with promoting independent music, NH7.in creates an

avenue for artists to sell music directly to their fans, which is the crucial next step for independent arts to grow.

In addition to this, four million monthly users of Flipkart will have access to a wide selection of independent

music from India and around the world at their fingertips.

In July 2012 Flipkart announced the launch of its in-house brand Digiflip. Digiflip is a brand of digital

accessories with products like laptop bags, laptop sleeves and camera bags among others

3. AcquisitionsThe following are the acquisitions by Flipkart

2010: WeRead, a social book discovery tool.The stated goal was to give Flipkart a social recommendation platform for buyers to make informed decisions

based on recommendations from people within their social network.

2011: Mime360, a digital content platform company.

2011: Chakpak.comChapak.com is a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos. Flipkart acquired the rights

to Chakpak’s digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10,000 movies and close to 50,000 ratings.

Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not use the brand name.

2012: Letsbuy.com

Letsbuy.com is India's second largest e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an

estimated US$ 25 million.Letsbuy.com had been closed down and all the traffic of Letsbuy is diverted to

Flipkart.

4. Acclaims and accomplishmentsFlipkart is among the top 30 Indian Web sites and has been credited with being India's largest online bookseller

with over 11 million titles on offer. Flipkart broke even in March 2010 and claims to have had at least 100%

growth every quarter since its founding. As of today, Flipkart employs over 4500 people. Flipkart is the third

largest online shopping store after EBay and Amazon.

From a start-up with an investment of just four lakhs rupees, Flipkart has grown into a $100 million-revenue

online retail giant in just five years.


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Flipkart's reported sales were 40 million in FY 2008–2009 200 million in FY 2009–2010 and 750 million for FY

2010–2011. In FY 2011–2012, Flipkart is set to cross the 5 billion (US$100 million) mark as Internet usage in

the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online. At average, Flipkart sells nearly

20 products per minute and is aiming at generating a revenue of 50 billion (US$1 billion) by 2014.

Flipkart.com, the country's first billion-dollar-valued Internet Company, is surely in a state of perpetual

excitement. With 2500 people, daily sales touches a crore. Flipkart has become synonymous with online book

retail and large-scale e-commerce in India. And the key to the company's success lies in its payment-on-

delivery model, which helped overcome the average Indian consumer's misgivings and built trust.

5. Product StrategyFlipkart is set out to create something for the Indian market – a service that was specifically built keeping the

Indian consumer in mind. For them, the biggest inspiration continues to be the constant learning process that

has been a part of their journey. The other has been the ability to realize our dream of doing something for the

Indian consumer.

As far as entrepreneurship is concerned, Flipkart believes that the core focus for every start-up, regardless of

the industry, should be the same – and that is customer focus. By putting the needs of their customer first and

listening to what they have to say, is the only route to building a large, loyal customer base – the blueprint to

any business success story.

Consistent customer service is the hallmark of Flipkart. Discounts cannot replace the customer's satisfaction of

being serviced promptly and efficiently. Similarly, the trust-building exercise is accorded a lot of importance.

Flipkart connects with customers in real-time, through Facebook and Twitter. Honesty is the best policy for this

e-commerce trailblazer.

Flipkart is rapidly expanding its network of warehouses, distribution centers, procurement operations and 24/7

customer support teams. The company has its own delivery network in 37 cities and is set to expand this in the

current financial year. With a team of around 4,800 members, the company operates from offices and

warehouses in seven Indian cities.

6. Operational strategyFlipkart began operations on the consignment model — goods were procured from suppliers on demand,

based on the orders received through the website. However, eventually, the books-to-electronics e-shop

adopted the warehouse model. The company has its own warehouses, and maintains its own inventory. Sales

projection determines the inventory, and the available inventory accounts for the sales made; it's a self-feeding

cycle of sorts. Nearly 60 to 70 per cent of deliveries take place through their own network as this model

provides for better control over the entire logistics management piece.

On the operational front, issues faced by the company pertain to delay in deliveries, or faulty products. As a

customer-centric, none of these issues can remain unresolved for long. They faced significant challenges in

reverse logistics. It's a big task to track unsuccessful orders, which are quite costly to manage. Hence, Flipkart

stresses on customer service — it aligns with the firm's philosophy of making better our service promise'. Their

bigger objective is to redefine the way India shops.

Flipkart will continue to expand our categories in order to meet the growing consumer interest in the e-

commerce market. They have recently added computer peripherals, kitchen appliances, televisions and home

theatre systems and selected stationery items to their product range. They will continue to add more products /

selection to their existing categories as well.

7. BrandingFlipkart went for a major brand makeover, making it look more ‘up market’. There have been large newspaper

ads, TVCs and a lot of web ads. But unlike other ecommerce companies the inorganic marketing kicked in only

when the product was strong. Flipkart already had a proven model execution with books and extending to other

verticals did not need infrastructural changes. Flipkart’s real achievement has been in solving the pain points in

Indian ecommerce that most well funded players are still complaining about.

“No Kidding, No Worries”No Kidding, No Worries, the recent advertising and branding campaign of Flipkart is a unique example of “Trap

Them Young”. An in-depth analysis of recent advertisement campaign of Flipkart strongly conveys Indian

youth’s sentiments and their desire. The story board of adverts, features kids in adult situations, like a beauty

parlor, a cafe, and an office. The Hinglish language & the happening places is the heart of No Kidding, No

Worries advertisement series. The creative director succeeds to keep KOOLNESS of Brand Flipkart.


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Flipkart attacks the online fears

Flipkart carefully chooses their way forward. For now, Flipkart seems to be playing their cards right.

Flipkart.com has aired three TVCs. Each of the ads attacks a distinct fear in the consumer’s mind towards

online shopping, and how Flipkart solves that problem.

Fear of wrong product – 30 day replacement guarantee

Fear of giving credit card details online – Cash on Delivery feature

Fear of not getting the original product – Original products with original warrantee

The creatives using kids to break through the clutter, and the consumer worry and the solution offered by

Flipkart is clearly communicated. The brand ‘Flipkart.com’ at the end is also very clear to be missed, which

gives the branded breakthrough.

30 day Replacement guarantee

Flipkart.com offers you REPLACEMENT WITHIN 30 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF DELIVERY ON THE

product/s ordered on Flipkart.com i.e. if at the time of delivery and/or within 30 days from the date of delivery of

the product/s, if any defect is found, then the buyer of the product/s can ask for replacement of the product/s

subject to some terms and conditions:

Order cancellation

Cancellation of orders of products is permitted before the product gets shipped and the entire payment amount

is refundable. But products such e-Gift Vouchers, Wallet Top-Ups, etc are non-refundable.

Free shipping

Flipkart provides free delivery on all items if your total order amount is Rs. 300/- or more. Otherwise Rs. 30/- is

charged as delivery charges.

8. Flipkart’s strategy in solving problems in E-commerce

1. Discoverability:It is the case with any venture on the web, “How does the customer find us?” Answer: Organically! Flipkart has

been the “baap” of SEO. This has been the most important contributor to their success. Only when you see

people coming to you, you get encouraged to deliver more and keep adding. There is no fun (motivation) in

adding features to a product that no one is using.

SEO did not come the straightway. There were particularly 2 things that are worth mentioning.

a. Yahoo News:Until last year Flipkart had a feed of Yahoo News on its product pages. From what SEO means, this is to

increase the keyword density and introduce ‘original’ content on the page, as the product description across all

books sites is same.

b. We Do Not Sell Used Books:We DO NOT sell old books or used books. All the books listed at Flipkart.com are new books.

The books listed at Flipkart.com are NOT available for free download in ebook or PDF format.

The magic of this text is that if searched for “<book name> free eBook“or “<book name> pdf download” you

would always get Flipkart among the top results. These are very popular search queries and Flipkart had

nothing to do with it but still they cashed in. This was also the time when Flipkart had Adsense embedded.

People would come to the site, see nothing like a “PDF download” button, and then see an ad for PDF

download and click. This meant more revenue for Flipkart. Given that the margin on books are very small after

the discount, Flipkart was probably earning more by saying what they did not do than by doing what they

actually were suppose to do.

2. Payments:No credit card/net banking, fear to transact online, repeat transaction failures, no access to web – these are the

common problems with online payments. What Flipkart is doing to overcome these?

Flipkart had at least 4 different Payment Gateways integrated. They introduced Cash-on-Delivery. Then they

are also doing order on phone. Payment via DD/Cheque is also accepted.

2 basic things that they are currently doing that take little technical effort but quite some product management

‘will’:

a. Auto redirection to banking site: Unlike most other ecommerce sites, Flipkart never lands you on CCavenue

page, you are auto redirected to the banks page where the info is required to be filled. Flipkart by-passes 1

unnecessary page by passing the required parameters directly to CCavenue and not through a user interface.

b. Banks Status: Flipkart maintains its own real time status if the bank’s net banking is working or not. So there

are no surprises after you have chosen the bank and then go to the net banking page.

3. Inventory:In the world of eCommerce, the players keep a standard list of products and then go out procuring it only when

there is an order placed. There is no inventory on their end and there is no live status of inventory from their

supplier. Remember The Alchemist, “Never Promise something that you don’t have“.


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After placing an order, they would keep looking for the product at multiple places. After a week you might get a

call saying that either the product is not available and we will do a ‘favor’ by refunding your money or if the

product is there, it is not the color/size that you asked for.

Flipkart was no different in 2009, many customers used to get similar calls after days of ordering. But for the

last 1 year at least Flipkart maintains its own inventory (or at least it seems so). They are selling what they

have. From pure hearsay, Flipkart is taking up a big warehouse in Bangalore and is in talks for one in NCR as

well. One of the few companies that is using the funding to build a business and not spend it like a FMCG

company on ads

4. Delivery:Flipkart is exploiting the delivery problem as a cashable need gap and building its own delivery

backend. Flipkart is seen delivering through their own delivery boys in Bangalore and at times within 12hrs from

order.

Flipkart has started putting fliers in newspapers in Bangalore with a product listing, call-to-order phone number

and a promise of delivering ‘tomorrow’. This means more discoverability, no payment problem and no delivery

delay.

Flipkart is looking to build its own courier company. The recent $20Mn funding from Tiger Global was only part

of a larger sum they are known to be raising. Flipkart is looking to raise $100Mn at a valuation of $200Mn.

9. Marketing

It is very difficult to sell a product which has been offered intentionally high to a middle customer in India. But

then the customer is getting that offer at the comfort of their home. Any customer will like this and will pay the

amount tagged by retailer. But how can this idea are promoted. Flipkart used Word of Mouth as their best

marketing tool to sell their product. A satisfied customer tells others also about a good experience, and this how

the business of Flipkart depends. Flipkart has been using different Social Networking Engines to promote their

product. Promotions on Facebook, twitter and other social sites helps in gaining some attention, but to some

extent, the rest has been done by Services offered by Customer.

Customer satisfaction has been their best marketing medium. Flipkart very wisely used SEO (Search Engine

Optimization) and Google Ad-words as the marketing tools to have a far reach in the online world. Flipkart.com

official Face book page has close to 9 lac 'likes'. Flipkart recently launched a series of 3 ads with the tag line -

"No Kidding No worries". Kids were used to create the adverts to send out the message - if a kid can do it, you

can also do it.

The message is very clear to make people more comfortable with Flipkart, to generate a great customer

relationship and loyalty on the basis of great product prices and excellent customer service. All in all to create a

great customer experience.

10. Pricing strategiesWithout going into the theoretical and the management theories, pricing can be set on the following points:

1. Operating Margins - Essentially determining what the company earns to sustain business and turn a profit

2. Strategic pricing - Basically overall pricing strategy where some products are given at a higher discount in

order to capture market share or consumer mindshare.

So individual product pricing can be higher or lower while the overall picture is kept in mind so that the

company as a whole can sustain itself on an overall profits or deep enough pockets to work on losses for

sometimes.

Price is optimized best when the overall cost to the company per product is optimized. So that means here the

contributing factors have to be looked at and the costing there has to be optimized.

So looking at the major cost factors that affect the E-Commerce that are taken care of Flipkart:

1. Supply Chain (procurement and shipping):

Flip kart’s core competency lies in their Supply chain and logistics which has been perfectly monitored and

managed by professionals. This involves a deep understanding of where the suppliers are and where the end

consumers are so that when a customer orders a product, it can reach him by the shortest route in the shortest

time and minimum manpower time being spent.


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This also means that customer demand is anticipated and pre-emptive steps are taken so that products are

ready to be shipped from the point closest to the consumer before he even places the order.

This helps in reducing the overall cost of moving the product to consumer’s place. The overall cost of Flipkart

has been reduced to great extent, all thanks to Blue Dart, the logistics partner of Flipkart. It is so because the

transportation cost has been reduced and therefore Flipkart is able to earn a reasonable margin on the sale of

product, belongs to the actual producer

2. Manpower and time spent on each order:

We must understand that all operations have to be made sustainable and more importantly scalable for

ultimate long term growth. So all process from what route a person takes to pick up material to how much time

it takes to pack a product have to be looked at and it is when a company works toward optimizing all these

processes that a company really starts to take the lead.

11. Competition

Competition is increasing day by day and by the end of 2015, there will be huge number of players in E-

commerce in India. With the rise in Internet users, the numbers of e-commerce companies are also increasing.

So Flipkart will definitely face tough fights in future and they should be ready for it. Snapdeal is currently the

biggest competitor of Flipkart. Other close competitor includes Groupon, best deals etc.

12. Tackling competition

Great website:Flipkart’s website is great, easy to use, easy to browse through the products, add products to wishlist or to a

cart, get product reviews and opinions, pre-order products, make payments using different methods, in short

hassle- free and convenient.

Great Delivery system

When user places an order, the postal address has been tracked. And the order goes to nearest warehouse.

And it is being packed, picked up and delivered by local courier company. The advantage of cash on delivery is

no fraudulent activities or anything. When the item is delivered makes sure the item is there and then pays. And

also user can track the routine of item through email. And the company informs about the status of item.

Great books and hot dealsFlipkart offers excellent collection of books, DVD’s, movies, electronics items, home appliances, and life style

and health care products. Flipkart promo coupons and discount coupons are also available. One another

feature of Flipkart is best deals and offers. When you place an order greater than 300 INR, you’ll get free

shipping.

Excellent communication systemFlipkart is renowned by their relationship with the customer. If you are facing any difficulties getting the product

you can contact them via telephone (like everyone 24/7), email or through website.

India is a hard place for delivering any item but Flipkart is managing to deliver the item in 2-3 business days. If

the order you placed is not available don’t worry. The enquiry goes to nearest supplier and the item becomes

available It will delivered within 24 hour. Flipkart is aiming to bring down the delivery time of regular orders to

24 hour. An excellent marketing strategy by Flipkart marketing team to increase the sales

Great customer retention rateFlipkart's reason of success is that it has a great customer retention rate, it has around 15 lac individual

customers and more than 70% customers are repeat customers i.e. they shop various times each year. The

company targets to have a customer base of 1 crore by 2015.

Credible and Easy Payment system:Flipkart offers many modes of payment such as

Credit/debit card

Net banking

Cash on delivery.

0% EMI

Online Wallet

Also Flipkart offers 0% EMI on transactions made on credit card payment where the whole amount can be paid

in 3 monthly installments without any extra charge. For installment greater than 3 months, a minimal charge is

levied.

Flipkart Adds Online Wallet to Ease Payment Woes

Flipkart has added a new ‘Wallet‘feature to enable customers store money in their Flipkart account and redeem

it on future purchases. Flipkart Wallet works on a prepaid credit system: you can top up your wallet with any

desirable amount up to Rs 10,000 by using any one of its regular payment modes like credit card, debit card,

and net-banking. This amount will then be reflected as prepaid credit on your account and can be used as a

payment mode for all forthcoming purchases on the portal. Expectedly, this amount will be deducted from the

balance in your account’s wallet. Flipkart allows you to make a partial payment using your Wallet and pay the

remaining amount using other payment modes like credit card, debit card, and net-banking. Flipkart does point

out that cash-on-delivery payment mode cannot be combined with a Wallet payment. This is Flipkart’s way of

bypassing payment gateway problems and also facilitates frequent shoppers

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13. Pros and Cons of Cash on Delivery modelE-commerce works on the principle of negative working capital. In other words the vendor does not use his

capital in procuring the goods rather uses your payments made in advance to procure the goods and deliver it.

Let me take an example, just imagine you bought an iPad on line, and you paid for it using your credit card.

Now the money from the credit card is debited immediately while the delivery of the iPad takes about a week or

15 days. Now most firms can procure faster and deliver but they take that extra few days as they retain the

payment and can put it to other use or simply generate interest for those few days. This model was pioneered

by Dell when they sold their laptops extensively through Dell Direct and it had worked very well for them earlier.

Now this model is under threat as consumers in India work on the cash on delivery model. Now in the global

scenario Cash on delivery accounts for almost 15% of transactions according to a Nielson report. But in India it

is almost 80%.

Apart from locking up working capital, cash on delivery also adds to the complexity of the supply chain. Plus

there is an added threat as collection is done by the delivery agents and often there is an element of hazard

while using external collection agents.

Despite these challenges “Cash on Delivery” has led to the boom in the e-commerce in India and does not look

like the model is going away soon. So what can e-retailers do to sustain themselves in this environment?

1. Have cash on delivery (COD) only for select categories. Often using COD for all categories may not make

logistical sense. Some of the categories like books etc may not need COD model. While electronics is

something that COD model would work better.

2. Keep a minimum purchase limit for availing COD. Now I have had many experiences on setting limits and

not too many people in India have been very happy with it. But in the US and Western Europe there have often

been limits on setting OD facilities.

3. Start a small charge for COD, maybe a tiny amount to begin with but sooner or later the charge could

potentially off set the working capital deficit.

14. Future strategy for FlipkartOvernight successes usually last just that one night. Strategy has got to lay out a more forward-looking

roadmap for a company that spans multiple years. To make things simple, lay the future out into three phases –

Build, Pull Away and Transform. These do not need to – and indeed should not be – distinct phases but rather

overlap each other to benefit from positive momentum that each phase builds and hands over to the next.

Build: A solid foundation is half the good workIn its first phase of transformation Flipkart must build deeper engagement with its customers. It needs to both

build a deeper relationship with its buyers and provide those touch points that are more omnipresent than the

web-based Internet.

Loyalty: It is strange that for a service that is not vividly distinguished from me-too, Flipkart chose not be build

loyalty programs. Loyalty need not have just the old school implementation of co-branded shopping appliances

like credit cards. Loyalty programs need to be deeper, where someone who has greater wallet spends at

Flipkart feels rewarded both monetarily and – more importantly – otherwise. Flipkart Coupons is another loyalty

device conspicuous by its absence. As gifting increasingly strives to put last-mile choices back in the hand of

the recipient, a loyalty program based on redeemable coupons will deepen association with the customer.

Corporations spend a lot of money in fine tuning their Rewards & Recognition programs to make them suitable

for the young demography – a space that Flipkart can immediately capture (and since corporations buy

coupons in bulk, a part of working capital management can also be taken off in the process).

Touch points: Ecommerce is shifting from the browser to applications that sit on devices. Flipkart can regain its

first mover advantage by introducing iOS and Android apps that make shopping much easier than on native

browsers.

Ring fencing customers and pampering those who return for more is crucial in the build-out phase. For years,

Flipkart has focused on internal effectiveness and not so much on the customer and it is about time to change

that. There is also an important mindset change that needs to happen at this phase – increasing value for not

only buyers but also sellers who would benefit the most in having access to the Flipkart platform. The outcome

of such thinking will play an important part in the late-second and third stage of this transformation

Pull Away: Inorganic growth and building the ecosystem

Exploit adjacencies: Having built a solid foundation where the customer has been placed at the focus of future

planning (in addition to internal effectiveness, which Flipkart has always excelled in), opportunities in

adjacencies need to exploited. Category expansion, which Flipkart has been at, is one way to provide buyers

with all their needs on a single platform and leverage scale. There are adjacent categories however that have

already matured into full-fledged businesses with similar – not exact – contours. Take travel for example. The

basic fabric of the business is similar – acquire inventories from suppliers, build a technology platform for

delivery, squeeze out a bit of margin and deliver the product by careful customer segmentation minus the

added headache of physical deliveries. Standing where we are, categories such as these are too difficult to

build grounds up for Flipkart. Hence an acquisition is the best route to increase momentum on the ecommerce

flywheel Flipkart has already built and set in motion.

Build the ecosystem: When a business model has successful equivalents in developed markets, the role of a

local strategist becomes easy – import ideas. How successful will a Flipkart handheld device or Flipkart Web

Services become? What is interesting however is building a supply ecosystem where original creators are

encouraged to participate on the platform without losing value to intermediaries. Authors are a very obvious

target audience in this category, which itself has a very wide range encompassing text books, animated books,

restored (and retold) classics, fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels – the list can go on. Besides the content, form

has diversified significantly, thanks to bloggers and journalists. Developing relationships with producers directly

(building the relationship is not entirely easy) and co-creating products increases the value of the Flipkart

platform for those who were perhaps dis-intermediated or losing too much to make authoring a successful

profession (‘authors’ has been used metaphorically somewhat. This strategy holds good for any original

producer of content/merchandise. For example, this can work as well for art and handicrafts as it will for books).

Inorganic expansion and building ecosystems should herald a different thinking process for Flipkart – a line of

thinking that transforms the business from being a service providing ecommerce to becoming an electronic

marketplace and platform. Platform companies (Eric Schmidt named Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google as

the ‘Gang of Four’ Platform Companies) are ones that come with a core and then combine complements from a

variety of other providers to add disproportionate value to the service. Platform companies are difficult to build

but once done (and there are important technology and business considerations) are in the long-term more

successful than pure-play product or service players.

This phase of pulling away is the most important phase in Flipkart’s strategy, in both design and execution.

Transformation: Onwards to Flipkart 2.0The vision for a transformed Flipkart is where Flipkart is a platform inviting multiple entities to participate not

only as part of the supply chain, catalogues and consumption but most importantly in innovation. Think of it this

way: where in a fast-forwarded world Flipkart is a platform for providing online education content to a vast

majority of institutions in India. Creators of content will always strive to innovate and Flipkart being a platform

will reap the benefits of that innovation without having to explicitly participate in it. On the same platform

innovators will bring newer ways to present the content and perhaps another participant will make learning

more social.

Leveraging scale becomes easier for a platform company. Continuing with the earlier example, investments in

building incremental ecosystems can present disproportionate rewards to business outcomes for Flipkart. The

same (or very closely related) content for education could be as applicable in Southern Africa as is it is India,

opening up immediately vast business potential. The true unlocking of scale can easily happen in a world

where Flipkart is a platform rather than an ecommerce service.

A large-scale program that takes a product or service company and transforms it into a platform play is not

simple. For some it could be a life’s dream. But it certainly is a dream worth living. For a company like Flipkart

that has already transformed the ecommerce market in India, this could be the second calling for a chance of

inclusion in history’s wall of fame.

ConclusionFlipkart is a story that comes from smart work and an ‘it is possible’ attitude. There is a need to for a couple of

more stories like these and there would be no cribbing about Indian E-Commerce not working.

Their aim is to make Flipkart synonymous with the shopping experience in India.

E-commerce in India has a huge potential going forward and this is just the start. They have a lot of work ahead

of us if they are to fully realize this potential – they feel it will be some time before they actually look overseas

The USP of Flipkart is to provide the consumers with the best online shopping experience. The company aims

to provide its customers with good value and wants to be regarded as one of the most friendly service providers

in the domain.

It is also looking to become the biggest e-commerce organization of India while retaining its focus on serving

the customers to the best of their abilities. It will also look to innovate in this domain and try to expand its

offerings so that customers have more to choose from.

These are the reasons why many love Flipkart. Some people calling it as Amazon of India which fits to Flipkart.

Flipkart: The Growth Strategies of India’s First Billion Dollar.Com Company

E-Retail in IndiaE-retail, a form of e-commerce, involved selling goods and services electronically, i.e. through the internet. Generally, e-commerce had four models: Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Business-to-Business (B2B), and Consumer to Business (C2B). Of these, e-retail fell in the orbit of B2C.

The main vehicle of e-commerce was the internet and the World Wide Web. Fax, and telephones too were common. The internet assisted the use of new types of information-based business processes for reaching and interacting with customers online...Flipkart Amidst these companies came Flipkart with what was said to be an innovative business model compared to its competitors. Initially, Flipkart sold only books through its e-retail store with above 10 million titles distributed from warehouses in five cities and its personnel delivering the books to its customers. Within two years, Flipkart became one of the top 100 Indian sites. It expanded its business from books to mobile phones, appliances, gaming consoles, music, and movies...Flipkart's Business Model Flipkart customized Amazon’s business model to suit the environment in India. It emerged as a horizontal portal from a vertical portal. Flipkart adopted the model of virtual presence, keeping its physical presence at a bare minimum and operating only through the internet...Road Ahead Flipkart customized Amazon’s business model to suit the environment in India. It emerged as a horizontal portal from a vertical portal. Flipkart adopted the model of virtual presence, keeping its physical presence at a bare minimum and operating only through the internet...

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