Saturday 4 July 2015

FLIPKART- A name to reckon with in the E-Commerce Industry....

Hey Folks!! It has been more than a month since I wrote a blog post. With a very happy family event having completed last month which had kept me busy in the last month, I decided to write again!

There are a variety of topics which I could write about but I decide to present the story of  FLIPKART  to you readers from an outsiders perspective.

Personally, over five years back I remember having been introduced  to this online site where we could buy books of all varieties & get it shipped to your home. It was really helpful for me as this fueled my interest to read more & in that period I was engrossed in reading Sidney Sheldon's books & I got a really great offer wherein I could get all of Sidney Sheldon's books(Around 20 of them ) for a very affordable rate. That made me stick to this online site since then  & I must say that now FLIPKART offers various products apart from books. Books are just one of the many products being offered on their website nowadays.

I stumbled upon an interesting news article about FLIPKART's  story & I decided to use that as a base to build this blog post on. FLIPKART is one of the bigger names in the Online Retail Industry in India. Founded in Bangalore in 2007 by Sachin & Binny Bansal , this company had an online book listing of over 11.5 million back then which expanded tri-foldly as of June 2015.



The co-founders were former employees of Amazon.com who quit their jobs and started Flipkart. For the first year after it's inception, Flipkart sold only books but having gained popularity & a good customer base , they branched out into selling CD's, DVD's, Mobile Phones, Electronic Devices & their accessories & much more.

How did Flipkart get on top of the E-Commerce Market in India in just 4 years?  What are some of the strategies implemented by Flipkart to create online business in India? What made Flipkart standout & give stiff competition to the likes of Amazon.com?  Well these are some questions which intrigued me & made me write a blog post on Flipkart's  story.

The major positive in Flipkart's way was that around the time they launched, the Indian consumers were slowly moving out of their traditional means of shopping & were prepared to shop more online.  And to attract customers to their site, Flipkart started off by selling books which was a cheapi investment which paid off rich dividends for Flipkart in the long term.

The robust logistics at Flipkart differentiates them from other wannabes in the E-Commerce Industry in India. Faster delivery times coupled with a well spread out distribution system enabled them to achieve this level of popularity.  They were the first online startups in India, to capitialize on the wide reach of Social Media Marketing & use it to their advantage. So much so that , customer satisfaction has been their biggest marketing medium.

Here's an interesting animation video presenting the Flipkart story so far:




On further digging, I found some of the aspects which are the success mantras for Flipkart which are Great Customer Service,  Easy to use website with a hassle free payment system, Cash on Delivery/ Card on Delivery mode of payment which allows more flexibility to customers. Among the other aspects has been the innovative advertisement campaigns which Flipkart adopts which attracts more customers to use their website.


With the e-commerce industry booming big time & to establish itself in the online fashion industry, Flipkart bought the famous online fashion store Myntra.com a couple of years back.  This has helped in establishing a firmer customer base for them as many urban customers shop online for  clothes in recent years.

And having launched a Flipkart wallet has helped as customers can now have an online wallet on Flipkart & use that money in future which negates the concern of the customer to use their Credit/ Debit card for each purchase of theirs.

There will naturally be threats to Flipkart with many online e-commerce companies gaining popularity in recent times & mainly from  Amazon.com who have launched their India specific site Amazon.in to cash on the growing Indian e-commerce industry. It will be a challenging proposition to see how the big players Flipkart, Snapdeal & Amazon fight it out against each other to attain the # 1 position in the e-commerce industry.

From a personal perspective , I have used Flipkart.com to purchase lots & lots of books along with buying CDS, DVD's & mobile phone accessories. Recently my brother gifted me an Iphone 5S & I purchased the case for the mobile from Flipkart.com.  I have had a very good experience with Flipkart on all occasions so far & I just hope they continue their good work & can expand their product portfolio in  the future so that we customers can get more to choose from.

Hope this blog post would have been interesting & informative for you all!!

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