Flipkart Company

What is Flipkart?

Flipkart is one of the most popular online marketplaces in India. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal established the e-commerce business as an online bookshop. However, as the company's reputation rose, it developed and broadened its range of services to meet its increasing customer base. The first month of business was October 2007, and Bengaluru was chosen as the location for the company's headquarters. In addition to selling books, the platform began offering a wide range of other things, including music, mobile phones, and other electronic devices, because e-commerce is progressively bringing about a change in the world of retail and is gaining momentum in India, Flipkart has evolved at a quick rate and continuously added several new item categories to its collection.

At this time, the company offers more than 80 million products in over 80 different categories, including mobile phones and gadgets, PCs, laptop computers, novels and e-books, household appliances, electrical items, clothing and accessories, sports and fitness, baby care, games, and toys, jewellery, and footwear, among other things. According to Walmart's data, Flipkart set a new high for the number of people actively shopping on the site during November 2020. The company now sublets more than one million square feet of space in various cities throughout India, such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Lucknow, and Ahmedabad, amongst others, to guarantee that its customer base would always get their orders on time.

History

Sachin and Binny Bansal, both graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, were working for Amazon when the idea for their own business in India first came to them. Although Sachin had been working for Amazon for some time, he introduced Binny to the firm, and Binny now works there as well. Sachin, however, seemed to be becoming more bored with his position.

Binny Bansal felt like he was working overtime," so he left the firm when Sachin and he came up with the concept of starting an online business.

From a two-bedroom flat in the Kormangala neighbourhood of Bengaluru, Sachin and Binny first launched Flipkart as an online bookstore. They began with a financial amount of 4,00,000 Indian Rupees (Rs.) collected from their savings.

When Sachin and Binny obtained a great reaction and success in selling books in 2007, they intended to expand to selling gadgets. By 2014, the firm had reached a value of one billion dollars, making it one of the most valuable companies in India. When Sachin and Binny started Flipkart, internet shopping in India was a faraway dream for them. However, their hard work and perseverance paid off and turned them into widely successful entrepreneurs, which put them considerably ahead of the list of successful Indian entrepreneurs.

Flipkart's Funding

The market value of Flipkart in the year 2022 is estimated to be USD 37.6 billion. The major investment in the firm had been poured by the founders themselves, which was a total of 5,600 USD when the company was first established. Following this, investments came in from Accel India and Tiger Global, with Tiger Global continuing to play a pivotal role in the company's financial future.

eBay, Axis Bank, Manhattan Venture Partners, and Softbank Vision Fund are just a handful of the major investors who have contributed to the platform. The most significant event in the platform's history was when it was bought by Walmart for a total price of $16 billion, with Walmart purchasing a 77% ownership stake in the company.

Business Model

Flipkart, which has completely changed the marketing sector in India, operates on a business-to-customer approach (business-to-consumer model). Before transitioning to a marketplace model that connects sellers and buyers and growing its product selection, Flipkart first operated under a direct-to-consumer business strategy, during which it sold books and a few other types of items.

Today, it offers a wide variety of products, including cellphones, clothing, furniture, refrigerators, fast-moving consumer goods, and books, among other things. Flipkart claims that they have lakhs of merchants on board from all across India who list their items in over 80 different categories. The ordinary consumer may not care who the vendor is if they have a connection with Flipkart, but the seller who before could not have contacted the customer may now do so owing to the platform provided by Flipkart. Flipkart takes a commission fee from the vendor to handle the transaction and ship the ordered goods.

Flipkart's Several Acquisitions in Recent Years

In recent years, the e-commerce sector has witnessed several mergers and acquisitions, and Flipkart has also undertaken several acquisitions to grow its company and raise its sales and profitability. Myntra, eBay India, PhonePe, Jabong, Letsbuy(dot)com, chakpak, Appiterate, weread, FX Mart, and ngpay are some of the important companies that Flipkart has purchased in recent years

Target Audience

Flipkart is aimed at everybody who uses the internet but does not have time to shop in physical stores. 75% of its audience comprises people between the ages of 16 and 55, despite its target audience being scattered across various market segments. This is because consumers from various demographic backgrounds can find products that are attractive to their interests.

It focuses on customers who are interested in having a wide selection of options and who would rather buy in the comfort of their own homes without having to deal with a lot of trouble. It employs clever marketing methods to capture the attention of its target and persuade them that online buying is superior to conventional shopping. It makes an effort to extend its services to all areas of the nation where deliveries are possible.

Product Assortment

Mobile Phones

Flipkart has a mobile device appropriate for customers of all income levels and technological inclinations, ranging from basic feature phones to cutting-edge smartphones. Flipkart takes care of all the fundamentals, searching for bigger and fuller displays, batteries that pack more power, lightning-quick CPUs, beauty apps, high-tech selfie cameras, or large internal storage space.

Browse products from some of the most well-known companies in the nation, including Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Realme, and Honor, to mention just a few. You can shop with complete peace of mind knowing that you are only purchasing from the industry's most reputable brands.

The Flipkart Complete Mobile Protection offers door-to-door services for various post-purchase issues, including cracked displays, liquid damage to the phone, hardware and software faults, and replacements. In addition, if you have the Complete Mobile Coverage Plan from Flipkart, you won't ever have to worry about wasting time going from one service centre to another. This package includes access to a variety of post-purchase options, beginning at as cheap as 99 rupees!

Furniture and Home

Moving to a new location is never simple, and it may be more difficult if you need to purchase new furniture for the new home. It might be challenging to arrange all furniture, such as beds, couch sets, dining table sets, closets, and TV units.

The journey may leave you feeling overwhelmed by the hundreds of different possibilities that are available to you. Where can you go that you can count on, and what kinds of furniture will last for years? It's important to ask these questions before settling on a shop. Flipkart's Durability Certified Furniture Store offers a carefully chosen selection of furniture with the contemporary Indian consumer in mind. It has furniture that has been tested and certified to survive for at least ten years.

You can be confident that every piece of furniture you purchase from Flipkart has been subjected to 35 different stability and load tests to ensure that it is of the highest possible quality. Nilkamal, Godrej Interio, Urban Ladder, HomeTown, and Perfect Homes are a few names that stand out as worth keeping an eye out for.

Flipkart Groceries

Having easy access to goods is one of the many benefits that Flipkart offers its customers. Now that Flipkart has entered the food space with Supermart, you can easily get the necessities without going far. Flipkart is pleased to provide everything from beans and spices to dairy products, personal and sanitary care products, staples for breakfast, health drinks, ready-to-cook meals, grooming products, and cleaning agents. Flipkart is your one-stop shop for all of your household needs.

Subscription Services: Flipkart Plus

Plus was first conceived as a customer loyalty reward program that would be offered to all of the company's regular customers at no additional cost.

To use this service, all you require is a deposit of 200 super coins. Plus members get four super coins for every one hundred rupees spent on a Flipkart order, while non-plus members receive two super coins for the same amount.

The most notable advantages of becoming a member of Flipkart Plus include:

• Receiving free shipping.
• Gaining early access to shopping events such as discounts and festivals.
• Receiving special exchange offers.
• Receiving priority support from the company's customer care team.

Simply put, you will accumulate more points as you make more purchases.

In addition to this, the Flipkart super coins may be redeemed for a variety of fascinating services, such as a yearly Zomato Gold subscription, A membership to Hotstar Premium for a whole year, a subscription to Gaana Plus for six months, and a discount of 550 rupees on flights purchased via ixigo.

The Pricing Strategy Used by Flipkart

Pricing strategies are the procedures and approaches that companies use to determine the prices that they will charge for their goods and services. If "price" refers to the amount of money that you ask customers to pay for your goods, then "product pricing strategy" refers to the process by which you decide how much that "pricing" should be.

In India, the primary function of e-commerce businesses like Flipkart is to act as a connection point between customers and sellers. Discounts are a crucial part of the business strategy of these companies. The practice of direct retailing is prohibited by Indian law and hence cannot take place in these markets. They are not permitted to exert influence over the product pricing that vendors on their platforms set, including any discounts that they provide, but the reality is that they have a significant amount of influence on the pricing decisions made by their merchants/vendors.

Flipkart provides its vendors with pricing suggestions, but unlike Amazon, it does not pay the whole bill for any discounts that are offered (Amazon provides its merchants with recommendations about the percentage of discount they should apply to their items, and because Amazon pays the bill for these discounts, businesses are willing to cut their prices to compete. Therefore, when a certain length of time has passed, Amazon will pay its merchants the additional money that it has provided as discounts). E-commerce companies like Flipkart also use the tactic of differentiating their prices online. (The practice of setting different prices for products sold via different distributors).

Collaboration and Celebrity Promotion

Flipkart has built a reputation for working with a wide variety of partners. In addition to this, a significant amount of capital is invested in star power and marketing to celebrities. Flipkart continues to work with a wide variety of well-known people on an occasional basis. Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt are one of the most recent and noteworthy pairings.

As part of this promotion, the firm is inviting fashionistas from all around the nation to enhance their look by shopping the most recent offerings from Flipkart.com. Ranbir and Alia, brand ambassadors for Flipkart Fashion, spread the message to customers that they can always be ahead of the fashion curve via a significant media mix and targeted communication. The duo was featured in several interesting and interactive media, ranging from short digital content to classic TV commercials explaining the advantages of purchasing on Flipkart Fashion.

Flipkart Prospects

Flipkart's future seems bright as the firm is quickly growing into new areas and has shown no signs of slowing down in its expansion efforts. The prospects that Flipkart presents include the following:

Flipkart Labs

Flipkart Labs is one of the most recent projects that was established by Flipkart on April 28, 2022, to expand the company's operations into Web3 and the Metaverse. Flipkart Labs, which has its headquarters in Bengaluru, has the primary objective of establishing an internal innovation capacity to fuel and shape the future of customer-centric e-commerce in India. The Flipkart Labs by Flipkart will examine the use cases of the innovative Web 3.0 and those of Metaverse, including NFTs, virtual stores, games, and other blockchain techniques. With the introduction of the Firedrops functionality, Flipkart has already started testing out its entry into the NFT and Web3 ecosystem.

The Flipkart Health+ Mobile Application

On May 26, 2022, Flipkart introduced its brand new Health+ App. The primary objective of this app is to provide users with quick and simple access to a wide variety of medications, healthcare items, and services located everywhere in India. This new Flipkart app will serve customers from more than 20,000 different pin codes, and it will make available high-quality, reasonably priced medicines and other healthcare products that will be easily accessible to customers from a wide variety of independent sellers located all over the country. The company's current objective is to establish a network consisting of at least 500 self-employed vendors.

2Gud.com

Flipkart has spent a lot of time and effort developing a refurbished market to facilitate shopping. The industry for refurbished products, which consists of online second-hand items, is booming on a global scale. In August of 2018, the CEO of Flipkart, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, announced that the company has decided to develop a refurbished market based on the lessons learned from eBay. 2GUD, whose activities will be fully different and separate from Flipkart, has entered a somewhat unorganized market. On its refurbished market platform, the company Flipkart, will conduct comprehensive testing on original items and provide a certified guarantee that ranges from three to twelve months.

Benefits of Using Flipkart

• Flipkart is without a doubt India's most popular and comprehensive online shopping destination. They provide a vast assortment of items in several categories. There doesn't seem to be another Indian e-commerce site with as many distinct product types available for purchase.
• Flipkart has partnerships with a variety of different shipping companies, it can provide timely delivery of the majority of its items to the vast majority of geographic locations. Additionally, the delivery service maintains a high level of professionalism. Cash on Delivery is an option that comes with a guarantee that covers replacement for the first thirty days.
• Flipkart sometimes provides free shipping or delivery with no further price.
• 24*7 availability.

Disadvantages of Flipkart

• They only distribute their stuff inside the boundaries of India. No service is provided outside of India, even if the customer is ready to pay an additional fee.
• The quality of their service has been mentioned as a common criticism lately. It happens from time to time that clients get their orders, but the parcels contain nothing and they are left frustrated. Regarding this issue, customer support does not answer appropriately. They want to see evidence that the product was not delivered to them. Flipkart must take action about how and what delivery guys are doing.
• As of the latest announcement, the minimum order required to qualify for free home delivery has been increased to 500/-. On the other hand, certain websites provide this service for a price that is far lower.
• When compared to the service offered in metropolitan regions, the level of service in rural areas falls short of expectations. In more remote sections of the country, it may sometimes take a significant amount of time before a product is delivered.