The document provides an analysis of Flipkart.com, India's leading e-commerce platform. It discusses Flipkart's history and growth, from its founding in 2007 selling books to expanding product categories and sales. Key strategies that contributed to Flipkart's success include cash on delivery, easy return policies, and competitive pricing. Future opportunities discussed include expanding internationally, partnering with global brands, targeting newer Indian cities, and focusing on apparel.

1. 12
Summer
Study
of
“Flipkart.com”:
India’s
Leading
E-­‐business
Portal
“ Flipkart- Amazon of India ”
LSE ID Number: 201134149
Name: Agrawal Sagar
Course: MG.150
E-­‐Business
in
the
Digital
Age

2. Study
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Executive Summary
The Research provides information about an overall analysis of a leading ecommerce
platform in India and thereby examines their strategies with respect to E-business and
marketing. The growth of this portal has been precedential in defining the E-business
parameters in India.
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INDEX
S.No Topic Page No.
1. Introduction 04
2. E-commerce in India 05
3. Company Profile 06
4. Company Growth & Expansion 07
5. Study of Consumer Behavior 09
6. Flipkart Success Factors 10
7. Challenging the Challenges 11
8. Marketing strategies 12
9. Expansions & Future Opportunities 13
10. Conclusion 15
11. References 16
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www.Flipkart.com
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Introduction
The Organization, which I have selected for my Study, is “Flipkart.com” an
Emerging Indian online mega store. I would be studying the strategies that the portal
have used to attract Indian masses, so as to give them the total online shopping
experience, the portal offers an unique strategy to masses to make payment modes
like Cash & Card on delivery, which invariably helps the masses to avoid the hassle
of making online payments, as the credit card penetration in India is very low, &
people are reluctant to make online payments more to do with the Indians psyche.
Since portals are giving a customized offering to the masses i.e rite from the wider
product portfolio to payment options, its making very convenient for the users to have
a online shopping experience hassle free.
Flipkart has followed the same business model as of Amazon.com, i.e starting from
selling books therefore we can call it as “ Flipkart - The Amazon of India “, however
Flipkart is now Regional based E-business portal i.e only targeting Indian Market.
More Intresting is that, the minds that worked to start Flipkart are also the Ex.
Amazon Empolyees.
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E-Commerce in India
India is one of the fastest growing & emerging economies of the world, having a very
huge consumer base & a big mass connected to Internet (approx. 100 million). The E-
business trend have been catching up in the country with the increasing rates of local
& domestic firms using the E-business model to do business which is very different
from the traditional way of doing business in India, it has lead to a interesting trend in
the market for the online shopping starting right from ordering food, grocery,
vegetables, fruits, taxis, electronics & so on.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Flipkart.com is an Indian based e-commerce company started by Binny Bansal and
Sachin Bansal, who previously worked at Amazon.com. Post their experience, they
ventured into a similar e-business idea and launched it in India. Flipkart.com works
with the aim of making products and goods easily available at the doorsteps of anyone
who has Internet access. Flipkart.com started off from selling books in 2007, based in
Bangalore, and entered then consumer electronics category with the launch of mobile
phones, in September 2010. Since then it kept on adding more new products
categories including books, mobiles, computers, cameras, home & electronic gadgets
& appliances, In addition to these very Recently, Flipkart.com has also widened its
foray by entering into the emerging digital content market with the recent launch of
Flyte, the digital music store & is still continuing to enlarge its product portfolio.
It is now one of the leading e-commerce players in India, currently ranks at the top 20
websites in India1, spread in 37 cities, with 11.5 million plus book titles, 14 different
categories, 3 million plus registered users and sale of 30000 items a day.
It provides online-shoppers a memorable online-shopping experience because of its
innovative services like:
• Cash on Delivery,
• 30-day replacement policy,
• Easy Monthly Installment options (EMI),
• Free shipping
• Discounted prices & deals
1
*source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/flipkart.com
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Company Growth and Expansion
The company was initially self- funded, by both co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal
spending Rs 400,000 or USD 9056 to setup the business. They later raised funds from
Private Equity Investors i.e Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management of $31
million.
In the year 2010, the company acquired WeRead, a social book discovery tool; in
2011, Mime360, a digital content platform company and Chakpak.com, a Bollwood
news site; and its most recent acquisition is Letsbuy.com which is India’s second
largest e-retailer in electronics.
Flipkart's reported sales for the last FY i.e were 75 crores 2010-2011, which has
increased 4 folds from that of the previous year were sales accounted for 20 crores in
FY 2008-2009, 20 Cr. And In FY 2011-2012, Flipkart.com now the portal is expected
to cross 500 crores mark as Internet usage in the country exponentially increases.
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Interesting facts & figures about the portal:
• Flipkart employs 4500+ people
• 2 million sales unit and 4 million visitors/month
• 11.5 million titles, Flipkart is India’s the largest online book retailer.
• Registered user base of 4 million customers
• Ships out as many as 45,000 items a day, clocking daily sales of approx Rs 2.5
cr.
• Flipkart is now investing in expanding its network of distribution centers,
warehouses, procurement operations which is now in only 8 cities in country,
so as to reach more & more Indian cities.
• The company is even setting up its own delivery network which is now in 37
cities, by which company can save up cost associated to the outsourced
shipping & logistic function and is set to expand this even further by next
year.
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Study of the Consumer behavior
In India there is hesitancy in using an online portal for purchase of goods because of
various reasons. The most prominent of which is that an online payment gateway is
not user friendly. However, Flipkart.com’s most outstanding feature is its COD or
Cash On Delivery pricing strategy, which gives the user the experience of online
shopping and the security of physical shopping. Also, Flipkart.com has a 30-day
replacement guarantee and an original product warranty, which dispels all doubts
from an online shopper’s mind.
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Flipkart Success Factors
The site is very easy to navigate, which helps users to easily search for the contents or
products online, it even allows users to search by using various filters like by price
range, search by brands, by age group, by hot-selling etc. If a certain product is not
available or is out of stock it even ask users to input its details & then when the
products is available the desired users are informed, this really helps one connected to
the products they are seeking & leads to repeat & frequent purchases.
The Flipkart site is fast & powerful, i.e if you Search any products in the flipkart
search bar and you’ll find exactly what you looking in likes no time & it’s very quick
to process the payments & transactions by a every efficient & flexible payment
mechanisms of the portals. Approximately 60% of orders are placed in cash on
delivery system. So there is high possibility scams & frauds, so users have to have
their email account linked & with verified details & receives a confirmation code
message on their cell phones or email, after which the users confirms the unique code
& the transaction is processed & usually get delivered in 2-3 business days on the
confirmed mailing address.
Flipkart manages to deliver the item in 2-3 business days. If the order placed is not
delivered in the specified time, immediate enquiry goes to nearest supplier and the
item becomes available. It will then be delivered within 24 hour depending on the
cause of delay**.
Flipkart is continuously aiming to bring down the delivery time of regular orders, in
doing so its investing in its own delivery system & network, As the time to delivery is
one of the important aspects of selling products online as users want a fast turn around
tme, its An excellent marketing strategy by flipkart marketing team to increase the
sales revenues & to optimize the user shopping experience & increasing loyalty by
repeat purchases.
The portals offers a good pricing offers & deals to its users by the means of cash
rewards, loyalty points, discounts, coupons, Frequent buyer rewards points. it even
offers goods relatively cheaper pricing points than it is available in the physical
market which in total helps users save money & at the same time get benefited by the
means of rewards points.
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Challenging the Challenges
One of the biggest hurdles is the Lack of infrastructure to support new businesses;
therefore managing logistics & supply chain is a big cost & concern affecting all the
E-portals Logistics companies.
Another big obstacle is that Users having lack of trust over making Payment online
using the payments gateways makes its more difficult for the E-businesses to attract
more customers & increase sales units & revenues. Additionally, Indians have an
distaste to credit cards – only an estimated 2 percent of the nation has a credit card
and a number of new payment gateway companies such as Paypal & CC Avenue have
sprung up to service the growing e-commerce ecosystem. Bt importantly Indians are
banking on Alternative payment methods such as Netbanking and all the major E-
business portals are now offered cash on delivery.
***Source : Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-
30/tech/29987630_1_e-commerce-market-web-users-internet#ixzz22QUb4vlW
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Marketing Strategies
‘Flipkart’ initially followed “word of mouth marketing” to popularize their
company. A few months later, the first book company sold on flipkart.com - John
Woods' “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”. Subsequent to its success on
its book category, flipkart aggressively marketed themselves on all over the net &
specially banked in the social networks like facebook, twitter so as to get connected to
the users & to all the aspiring customers, Over the years Flipkart has managed to
build a strong community having millons of followers on its twitter & facebook pages
giving instant responses and interaction.
Flipkart has also managed to sync all its operations via the mobile apps on all the
major platforms like android, apple, blackberry & a mobile website facilitating the
online purchases & selling functions.
From such mobile apps & strong communities online, its is managing leverage it
marketing & sales offers, promotions & customer database in providing them the
customized outlook & offerings & at the same time keeping them updated about the
new products addition, promotions & pricing & latest offerings.
However, Flipkart has gone aggressive on the offline media as well i.e Television &,
Print. It has come up with series ad campaigns on both TV and Print, by which it has
helped in making its band presence huge & now it it now got a good brand Recall.
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Expansion & Future Opportunities
• Should look for International/ Oversea’s markets or Neighboring Countries
• Strategic alliance with International brands & suppliers i.e sourcing & routing
the international products in the domestic market & vice versa, this can help
them get cost advantage & benefits.
• Critical mass of Internet users – Internet users in India is increasing at
increasing rate, so flipkart can target more & more cities i.e not only tier 1 & 2
but also tier 3 & 4 cities, which will help generate stronger customer base &
more revenues.
• Should clearing focus on the Growing Online Apparel business & it can
diversify into apparel category either organically or by acquiring other portals.
• Rising middle class with disposable income: with are rising disposable income
company should focus on tapping this middle class, which apparently
constitutes up to 40% of Indian population.
• User Experience: Portal should continuously aim to work to improve the user
experience by adding more & more innovative features in the website like
virtually shopping basket, virtual trial rooms, avatars. In this competitive
world to differentiate via user experience, the ultimate winner will be the
Indian online consumer.
• Should heavenly invest into E-CRM & online reputation management
• Logistics & Supply Chain: should continuously aim to reduce the delivery
time cycle.
**source : Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-
30/tech/29987630_1_e-commerce-market-web-users-internet#ixzz22QUb4vlW
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Conclusion
The Overall Brand Value of Flipkart is Good, but it is facing some tough competition
from its global competitors like Ebay and Amazon. But if talking about domestic
market i.e India, it is the most superior E-business portal which is aggressively
expanding & planting its roots deep into the Indian market & at the same time shifting
the mindset of the people i.e from going & shopping from physical store to online
stores, which is magnificent!
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References
 www.flipkart.com/about-us
 http://www.flipkart.com/s/press#
 http://simplify360.com/
 www.managementexplorer.com
 http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/features/flipkart-story-new-ideas-for-biz-
successindia_733561.html
 http://techcircle.vccircle.com/500/excl-flipkart-hits-rs-100cr-monthly-sales-
mark-now-serving-seven-orders-per-minute/
 http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article3290735.ece
 http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-30/tech/29987630_1_e-commerce-
market-web-users-internet#ixzz22QUb4vlW
 http://www.aarkstore.com/reports/India-Online-Retail-Market-Forecast
Opportunities-2016-197747.html
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