e-Retailing www.FLIPKART.

com

Flipkart.com
Founded in 2007, by Sachin and Binny Bansal Initially meant to act as a price comparison platform One of the spearheads of e-commerce in India Indias largest online bookseller (11 million+ titles on offer)

The Founders
Sachin and Binny Bansal
From Chandigarh IIT Delhi alumni Part of the same team in Amazon, where the idea of starting Flipkart crystallised

How it started
In 2007, with an initial investment of Rs. 400,000, or $8000 (now with revenues of $100 million) Merchandise mix:
2007: Books 2010: Media and electronics 2011: Stationery and consumer electronics, personal care and health care items 2012: School and office supplies, air-conditioners, lifestyle products, apparel

How it started
Initial business idea
Making books easily available to anyone who had internet access

Unique offerings:
Cash on delivery 30 day replacement policy Free shipping Items not easily available, or unavailable at brick and mortar retailers (eg. Manga, Japanese literature)

Facts Sheet
Ships around 30,000 items daily Portfolio spread across 12 categories Recently forayed into the digital content market with the launch of Flyte, the digital music store. Revenue of Rs. 2.5 crore per day Titles available on Flipkart (Books) 11.5 million Registered users on Flipkart 2.6 million

No. of employees 4500

Cumulative funding raised $31 million

Sales Growth
2008-09: Rs.40 million 2009-10: Rs.200 million 2010-11: Rs.750 million

2011-12: Rs.5 billion+

2015 projected: Rs.50 billion

On average, Flipkart sells 20 products per minute

CUSTOMER
India has around 13.5 crore internet users today where as the number of homes with Cable and Satellite (C&S) television is 10.5 crore. Flipkart targets a new set of consumers, mainly people who have not shopped online yet.

CONVENIENCE
Introducing cash on delivery and card on delivery. Orders are delivered within 1 day in Tier-I cities and 2-3 days in Tier II cities and 3-5 days Tier III cities Their website is great, easy to use, easy to browse through the products.

Flipkart also provides a 30 day replacement guarantee on its products and EMI options to its customers for making payments.

 Some unique product features of Flipkart available to the customers

Wishlist E-gift voucher

 Flipkart has launched a new Electronic Wallet feature that allows shoppers to purchase credit to their Flipkart account using credit or debit cards, and can subsequently be utilized to make purchases on the site, as and when required.

COST
Flipkart.com aims mostly at people who would like to buy books online in India. What the company calls the steroids for its website are low prices, free shipping and an intuitive interface that makes it very convenient to search for books. The site has a young and trendy look and feel. Flipkart provides free shipping to its customers on every order. Its also provides various offers and discounts that customers can redeem on purchase of products.

COMMUNICATION
Flipkart has been mostly marketed by word of mouth advertising. Customer satisfaction has been their best marketing medium. Flipkart recently launched a series of 3 ads with the tag line - "No Kidding No worries Flipkart.com official Facebook page has close to 9 lac 'likes'

In the initial days they have used WOM and customer satisfaction as the brand building strategy. Now they have exploited the social media and ATL communications to further build the brand. The company has also used LinkedIn to connect with people.

videos

Operations Strategy

Bottlenecks in Operations
Delay in deliveries or delivery of faulty products Significant challenges in reverse logistics Consumer bias

Lack of touch-feel-try experience

Mounting competitive pressures Offline presence

Flipkarts Marketing Strategy

Marketing Strategy
Word of mouth advertising
Customer satisfaction has been their best marketing medium.

Flipkart wisely used SEO and Google Ad-words as the marketing tools to

have a wide reach in the online world

Wider reach through advertising campaigns- mainly focused on TVCs

Granny & the Mouse

First TVC for the ecommerce portal. You dont need magic. Just log on to www.flipkart.com.

No kidding. No worries.
Take online shopping to a wider
audience and cover the nonmetro areas of the country. The TVCs stress on highlighting vital benefits of shopping on Flipkart.com The backdrop suggests that Flipkart.com is the new place to shop from

Shopping ka Naya Address

Attempt to position Flipkart as a synonym for online shopping. The ad doesnt only plan to inspire the people to shop via Flipkart, but is also promoting online shopping as a whole

Closet Full of Nothing

To promote its women's lifestyle

category
'When you have everything and still nothing to wear

Targeted towards the internet

savvy working woman, hard-

pressed for time and familiar with

online transactions

07- Chhaya Arawatia 09- Devika Bharadwaj 21- Miheer Khandeparkar 39- Parveen Shabnam 43- Veda Shah 57- Ankita Vasandani