flipkart crm case study

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Customer Analytics at Flipkart.Com

By: Naveen Bhansali, Jitendra Rudravaram, Shailaja Grover, Dinesh Kumar Unnikrishnan

Flipkart, the poster child of Indian e-commerce, was an early entrant in the nascent Indian e-commerce market and quickly established itself as the leading company in this space. Flipkart has grown…

• Length: 15 page(s)
• Publication Date: Jan 18, 2016
• Discipline: Marketing
• Product #: IMB555-PDF-ENG

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Flipkart, the poster child of Indian e-commerce, was an early entrant in the nascent Indian e-commerce market and quickly established itself as the leading company in this space. Flipkart has grown into an online retail giant, valued at over USD 15.2 billion as of 2015. Flipkart has been selling over 30 million products from more than 50,000 sellers in 70+ categories as well as has 30 exclusive brand associations with an in-a-day guarantee in 50 cities and a same-day guarantee in 13 cities. Flipkart was 33,000 people strong and had over 50 million registered users with over 10 million daily visits and 8 million shipments per month. Flipkart has been putting in much effort and emphasis on the use of Analytics in every aspect of decision making. Headed by Ravi Vijayaraghavan, the analytics team had over 100 data scientists in 2015. Customer churn is a major concern for Flipkart since it has direct impact on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). CLV is an important measure to differentiate customers, which can further help the organization manage them effectively. The main challenge in calculating the lifetime value of customers of e-commerce companies such as Flipkart is that the exact life of the customer is unknown owing to data truncation, that is, the actual point in time of customer churn, which may not be identified in e-commerce since there would be no prior communication from the customer about the churn. Hence, traditional models of CLV calculation may not be appropriate for e-commerce companies such as Flipkart.

Learning Objectives

The case may be used in Business Analytics and Big Data courses of MBA or Executive MBA programs to teach customer churn, customer lifetime value (CLV) and use of Markov chain (MC) to calculate CLV. The learning objectives are:

Learn to model customer churn using Markov chain.

Learn to construct Markov chain models using recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) concepts.

Predict probability of churn and time taken to reach the churn state.

Calculate customer lifetime value using MC.

Jan 18, 2016

Discipline:

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Industries:

E-commerce industry

Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore

IMB555-PDF-ENG

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Inbound-Outbound

About Flipkart

Flipkart went live in 2007 with the objective of making books easily available to anyone who had internet access. Today, they are present across various categories including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal products, home appliances and electronics, stationery, perfumes, toys, apparels, shoes, among other verticals. Their path-breaking services like Cash on Delivery, a 30-day replacement policy, EMI options, free shipping, and great offer prices revolves around providing the customers a memorable online shopping experience. Flipkart’s dedicated delivery partners work round the clock to personally make sure the packages are delivered on time.

• Manual inbound & outbound calling
• Integration with CRM & Order Management system
• Lack of multi-channel communication
• Automation of all inbound & outbound calls
• Seamless integration with Order Management System & CRM
• Omnichannel communication
• Quality Solution & high uptime

Ameyo's Solution

Flipkart has been using AMEYO to automate its manual processes and make the business more efficient. They replaced the tedious manual dialing out process with AMEYO to intelligently dial out numbers. Flipkart later implemented more features from AMEYO to fit into their inbound processes and seamlessly integrate with their in-house order management system (OMS), CRM, and dispatch system. The solution also implemented the Customer Manager API which pulled calling numbers in real time to AMEYO and the solution then dialed out.

Privacy Overview

Future of Insurance: Learnings from Varun Dua, Founder & CEO Acko

How to build Digital-first Brands: The Flipkart Story

Building Digital-First Brands

The Inspiring Flipkart Journey

Phase 1 - Laying the Groundwork (2008-2014)

In 2008, Flipkart entered the market as a simple online bookstore, quickly expanding its distribution network and prioritizing customer satisfaction. By doing so, they set the stage for the e-commerce revolution in India.

Phase 2 - The Thrilling Rivalry (2014-2017)

The years 2014 to 2017 saw an intense competition between Flipkart and Amazon. This period shaped the Indian e-commerce landscape, with both companies pushing their limits to outperform each other, leading to innovative solutions and faster growth.

Phase 3 - Fortifying the Empire (2018 onwards)

In the face of emerging competition, Flipkart focused on solidifying its market dominance by strengthening its core business, innovating in new verticals, and continuously improving its customer experience.

Building a Resilient Brand - Lessons from Flipkart

Flipkart's success can be attributed to its authentic two-way communication, willingness to adapt and evolve as a brand, and its do-think-do approach, which emphasizes action, learning, and iteration.

Reviving the Titan

To stay ahead, Flipkart continually revisited its core strengths, streamlined processes for maximum efficiency, and pursued relentless execution of its strategies.

Nurturing the Customer Funnel

Flipkart captivated users by engaging them through innovative campaigns and promotions. This, in turn, boosted customer lifetime value and opened up opportunities for the company to venture into new verticals.

Flipkart's Iconic Brand Odyssey

Flipkart's journey serves as a blueprint for digital-first success, demonstrating how resilience, innovation, and a customer-centric approach can carve out a unique and lasting legacy in a competitive market.

The insightful conversation in its entirety can be view below:

Or, you can scan through the main points from the conversation below:

At a high-level, Flipkart’s pre-Walmart acquisition journey can be divided into three phases:

• Phase 1 was the foundational phase between 2008 and 2014. Flipkart initially focused on selling books, building India-wide distribution network, and providing great customer experience to early adopters of the service. After cracking that, Flipkart expanded to electronics in 2011 and acquired Myntra in 2014. Flipkart held its first Big Billion Day sale in 2014.
• Phase 2 was the intense competition phase . Amazon launched its marketplace in India in 2013 and, in 2014, announced that it will invest at least $2B to grow its footprint in India. So, the race to dominate Indian e-commerce started in earnest in 2014. Between 2015 and 2017, there was an intense fight between Flipkart and Amazon.
• Phase 3 : By early 2018, it was becoming clear that Flipkart would be able to hold its ground against the much larger and much stronger competitor. This led to the consolidation phase for Flipkart. In this phase, it was important for Flipkart to strengthen its lead and to ensure that the advantage does not slip away.

In the first phase, Flipkart had laid for building a strong brand by focusing on providing great customer experience. Flipkart also used Cash-on-Delivery (CoD) to build trust with customers.

Shoumyan mentioned three lessons and guidelines from these early efforts:

[1] For digital-first brands (and increasing for all brands), “brand” is what one consumer tells another about the company (as opposed to pre-social media days when “brand” used to be what companies proclaimed themselves to be).

What used to be one-way communication from brands to consumers two decades ago has evolved into two-way communication between brands and consumers. Social media has not only provided a voice to the consumers but have also increased their circle of influence. This implies that brands need to consciously shape consumer narrative around the brand.

Based on this understanding, Flipkart’s marketing team had dual charter:

1. Make people transact with the brand

2. Make people to talk about the brand

Flipkart consciously worked to drive conversations about Flipkart amongst consumers.

[2] Brands — just like two human beings — go through stages of evolution. These stages are:

Unknown → Known → Known for something → Trusted → Loved

While building brands, marketers should not use marketing activities only for tactical reasons (e.g., using TV commercials to build awareness or leveraging discounts to get volumes). A strategic approach is to align the actions with the stage of the brand.

How did Flipkart move across these stages?

• Unknown → Known: Flipkart relied on superior quality of service and concomitant word-of-mouth in the initial stages. In the next stage, Flipkart leveraged performance marketing and communication channels (including advertising). This is when Flipkart identified the “kidult” theme (kids shown as grownup adults).

• Known → Known for something: Flipkart worked on making itself a destination for online shopping that was as easy as a child’s play. It also promoted itself as the destination for buying the latest and the coolest smartphones. ‍
• Known for something → Trusted: Flipkart worked to communicate that consumers can’t go wrong with Flipkart. In order to make itself as a trusted destination for e-commerce across the whole country, Flipkart emphasized cash-on-delivery, original products, etc. This was reiterated by the “Flipkart Assured” program and supported by the “Flipkart matlab bilkul pakka” campaign. ‍

• Trusted → Loved: It is important to move beyond the transactional value for this phase. Flipkart did this by thoughtfully identifying the “purpose” context that was aligned with its mission. Flipkart emphasized that it was an Indian brand that stood for everything that makes India progressive. For example, Flipkart embraced diversity of India. Shoumyan mentioned that one of his favorite themes of this phase were the “Penguin dad” campaign that celebrated fathers helping out their wives by sharing the parenting responsibilities.

How can a brand measure whether or not it is making progress across these stages? Shoumyan mentioned the following metrics:

• Unknown → Known: search volume, top-of-mind recall, and spontaneous recall (brand should be amongst the top 3–4 most aware players in the chosen category).
• Known → Known for something: consumer perception on key attributes (in order to measure that Flipkart as the destination for the coolest/latest smartphones, the scores should be the highest amongst all players), social NPS (to reflect that consumer voice is building up), acquisition funnel measures (for example, CAC and cost-of-installs should decrease).
• Known for something → Trusted: measurement about trust attributes and levers (whether they are going up or not; for example, what percentage of sales come from “Flipkart assured”, “original products”, etc. anchors). Also, in this stage, spontaneous recall should be in mid- to late-90s and almost everyone should knows what the brand stands for. In addition, the brand should get higher repeats leading to higher LTV (life-time value) of customers.
• Trusted → Loved: customers should become more forgiving of mistakes and less price sensitive.

‍ [3] Non-digital (“traditional”) brands operate with the think-do-think model; however, digital-first brands need to adopt do-think-do model of execution. This is because, unlike traditional brands (say, FMCG brands), launch of a product can take 18 months. Digital world moves much faster and, therefore, digital-first brands need to “fail fast and learn faster”.

In 2015, Flipkart had ~45% marketshare while Amazon had ~10% marketshare. This changed dramatically in 2016: Flipkart’s share reduced to ~35%, Amazon grew to ~25%. Flipkart was rapidly losing the marketshare to Amazon… and, from the outside, it looked like Amazon might win the war. But then something changed. Flipkart was not only able to hold on to its marketshare and but slowly increase it. What triggered this turnaround?

Shoumyan pointed out that Flipkart started by turnaround by fixing the mistakes that had crept into its consumer strategy. In order to improve unit economics (to move quicker towards profitability) and to enhance its reach, Flipkart had adopted the marketplace strategy for expansion. However, the marketplace strategy (due to lack of oversight and control) caused the user experience to degrade and for consumer trust to get eroded (to an extent). This is what provided a foothold to the competitors.

Flipkart recognized these mistakes and adopted three-pronged strategy to fix this and move forward:

• Getting focus back
• Get more out of less
• Relentless execution

[1] Getting focus back

First and foremost, Flipkart decided to focus on value-seeking, middle India consumers. As a result of this focus, Flipkart changed its focus on categories, products, etc. Shoumyan pointed out that any strategy has two parts: what you will do and what you will not do. As a consequence of focus on middle India consumers, Flipkart consciously decided to not fight the battle for experience-seeking affluent consumers in Tier 1 cities.

Even more importantly, Flipkart really understood what value meant: it meant more benefits for a given price. And, importantly, it didn’t mean the lowest price and it didn’t mean the biggest discount. As a result, Flipkart explore how to provide more benefits for a given price-point (instead of working towards reducing the price points).

This influenced not only the Flipkart product user experience but also helped identify the right promotional model. It also helped Flipkart prioritize entry into consumer finance and other Fintech products.

As an example, Shoumyan’s talked about “Itne mein itna” campaign during this phase, which emphasized more benefits for a given price point.

[2] Getting more out of less

To get more out of less, Flipkart used a 2x2 matrix with effectiveness and efficiency. This helped Flipkart track the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing spends across social media (engagement rate vs cost of engagement), performance marketing (cost-per install vs average revenue per install over 14 day period), etc.

Flipkart used this matrix to double-down on channels and activities that were yielding results while eliminating those that were not. It helped to figure out which sources maximized effectiveness while increasing efficiency.

It was also used for allocating marketing (Search Engine Marketing) budget across different categories. For each category, SEM spends were plotted against RPC (revenue per click). Flipkart found that for each category, there are specific levels of SEM spends for which RPC gets maximized; beyond this threshold, the marketing spends yield diminishing returns.

Flipkart used this mechanism to optimize its SEM spends. During this intense competition period, Flipkart found that the competitors — despite spending four times more advertising money — had got only 20% additional boost in revenue.

[3] Relentless execution

Core values in the marketing team: Creative excellence, Frugality, and Marketing Innovation.

For brand marketing perspective, creative excellence is critical because if creative is good, it helps the company to achieve its goal by spend less money. If the message is sharp, brand can get the same effect with lower budget. The other way to eliminate misattribution is to pick a unique “device” or theme. For Flipkart, kidadults device helped it to cut through all the clutter. Frugality has two aspects: how to “get more out of less” and how to reduce ineffective spends. Frugality also meant being data-driven about measuring effectiveness of the marketing activities.

Flipkart really pushed the boundaries in marketing innovation and continuously experimented with new things. Shoumyan pointed out that, at one point, almost half of new innovations done by Google and Facebook were done in collaboration with Flipkart. As an example, Flipkart took personalization to the next level by creating more than 3 million personalized video assets. This helped to improve conversion by 45%!

After establishing and retaining lead over Amazon, it would have been tempting to take the foot off the pedal. But Flipkart didn’t do this. Flipkart, instead, consolidated its lead and ensured that its advantage didn’t slip away. What did Flipkart do to become more efficient and more effective during this period?

Flipkart ensured that the — though the victory was celebrated — it didn’t make Flipkart lose the focus or to let complacency set in.

First, Flipkart worked to strengthen the customer funnel and explored how it can engage users better to increase customer LTV.

This was done after segmenting the users and developing a clear understanding of customer requirements. Flipkart used behavioral customer segmentation process. Shoumyan pointed out that any customer segmentation mechanism (based on demographics, psychographics, etc.) can be used as long as it provides Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) segments. Another important requirement is that the segments should be targetable and actionable.

Flipkart used the behavioral segmentation to divide consumers into 5 segments:

1. Browsers,

2. Lapsers,

3. Light users,

4. Heavy users, and

5. Super-heavy users.

Behavioral segments were created on the basis of Frequency and AOV ( Average Order Value ). Shoumyan pointed out that it would be create behavioral segments using contribution margin (in addition to AOV) in order to assess whether the customers were value building or value eroding.

Based on customer segments, Flipkart knew how to engage with the customers and what were the key tasks they wanted to achieve. For example:

• Browsers and lapsers: acquire more new users or re-acquire old users (and engage them to deliver the initial value)
• Light users and Heavy users: drive more usage by increasing frequency of purchases
• Heavy user and Super-heavy users: make them upgrade to higher order products and make them buy across categories

For each of these segments, Flipkart created separate marketing programs and defined the relevant metrics. For the browsers and lapsers, Flipkart marketing team designed acquisition programs and reactivation programs. For the light users and heavy users, Flipkart designed upsell/cross-sell program and created loyalty program. And so on. Overall, the goal was to make it easier for Flipkart to acquire users and then move them faster across the customer journey (from light to heavy to super-heavy users). In parallel, the goals was to make the customer bucket less leaky and to reduce the number of lapsers.

Second, Flipkart looked at vertical businesses to leverage them to complement the horizontal e-commerce platform. As part of this, Flipkart expanded to launch fashion, household goods, small and large appliances, baby, grocery, etc. verticals. The goal was to expand beyond the smartphones and electronics, apparel (esp. sarees), and branded goods (such as shoes) verticals.

Flipkart also forayed into non-ecommerce categories such as travel bookings, phone recharges, Flipkart videos, etc. The goal was to either maximize transactions or to maximize time spent with Flipkart. In other words, either more units sold or more DAU (Daily Active Users). Appliances, baby, grocery, etc. verticals were geared towards more units while videos, recharges, etc. were geared toward more DAUs.

Flipkart’s brand journey provides a good template for digital-first brands to chart out their journey. In addition to sharing the frameworks and principles for building digital-first brands, Shoumyan also answered a number of questions from the community members. We will share a summary of some of those in a separate post. In the mean time, if you have any comments and questions about Flipkart’s brand journey or the journey of any other digital-first brand, please do let us know.

Everyone in the startup ecosystem has heard about the main Flipkart story… and it is a fascinating story because it had many interesting characters, a lot of suspense and many sub-plots. Flipkart’s efforts to build a brand that was accessible to all Indians — not just to consumers in metros but also to consumers in Tier 2, 3, 4 cities across India — was a wonderful sub-plot. Shoumyan Biswas spent six fruitful years with Flipkart between 2013 and 2019 and was the Chief Marketing Officer ( CMO ) for Flipkart starting 2017 and CMO and Business Head of Loyalty, Partnerships & Advertising for Flipkart towards the end. We requested Shoumyan to share details about this aspect of Flipkart’s journey.

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How Flipkart pioneered a new digital approach to position itself as “India Ka Fashion Capital”

To quickly resonate among shoppers as one of India’s premier online fashion destinations, Flipkart went beyond its usual even-paced strategy to reach a wide audience. The brand took a YouTube-led approach to make an immediate impact online, resulting in 100M users reached in the first 10 days of the campaign and a near 10% lift in consideration by the end.

Last year, if you’d asked most Indian consumers about Flipkart , they’d likely have told you about its broad array of consumer electronics at competitive prices. Behind the scenes, however, fashion was actually one of Flipkart’s best-performing categories. In 2018, the brand set its sights on matching up reality with perception by aligning Flipkart Fashion as India’s online fashion capital. This was no easy task given the highly competitive market, but the brand recognized an opportunity ripe for the taking.

To establish its identity as “India Ka Fashion Capital,” Flipkart knew it needed to grab the attention of new fashion shoppers before their go-to stores were set in stone.

How ripe? By 2020, online sales for products including apparel and accessories in India is estimated to reach $40-45 billion . Improved infrastructure across India's non-metro cities has opened Flipkart’s doors to a wider audience of online shoppers. But the brand was still challenged by a fundamental shopping behavior: frequent shoppers typically buy from their favorite retailers. To establish its identity as “India Ka Fashion Capital,” Flipkart knew it needed to grab the attention of new fashion shoppers before their go-to stores were set in stone.

Flipkart is known to take experimental approaches to its campaigns , and this time was no different. Rather than steadily building up its reach over time, the brand quickly cast a wide net online from day one of the campaign, focusing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities where consumer growth was strong and steady. Along with immediately boosting awareness, this strategy gave Flipkart early insights from digital that helped personalize its approach in the following weeks. With Flipkart Fashion fresh on consumers’ minds, the rest of the campaign eventually drove impressive lifts in consideration and interest.

Using digital to reach and nurture a wider audience

Flipkart kicked off its “India Ka Fashion Capital” campaign with a bang: the brand complemented its TV spot with a variety of YouTube ads to maximize its reach while running search and dynamic display ads in support. This ensured that Flipkart Fashion would be visible to consumers across multiple touchpoints, and using audience insights  garnered in the first two weeks helped the brand hone its messaging to be more relevant at each stage of the journey.

Flipkart’s video creative played off its previous “kidults” (kids as adults) campaign with a twist: the first ads teased the addition of two leading Bollywood celebrities,  Shraddha Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor .

On YouTube, Flipkart was able to use affinity audiences  to reach shoppers interested in fashion apparel and then follow up with bumper ads (featuring both Shraddha and Ranbir ) on fashion-related content. After the 10-day blast period, the brand tailored its search and dynamic display ads throughout the rest of the campaign to reconnect with consumers who showed interest in Flipkart Fashion.

Striving for early impact to make a lasting impression

Flipkart’s front-loaded media strategy helped the brand reach more than 100 million users on YouTube alone in the first 10 days, whereas the brand’s previous Flipkart Fashion campaign took a month to do the same.

Comparing cumulative reach over time

Digital blast strategy

Traditional strategy

Think with Google

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But the best result wasn’t just reaching millions of shoppers. By making an early connection, the brand was in a better position to develop meaningful, long-term relationships with its audience. And once the full campaign had finished, it had clearly resonated beyond initial awareness: Brand Lift studies showed results that exceeded Flipkart’s past campaigns across the board.

Flipkart revealed that brands that go heavy on digital to make an early impression on a wide audience can drive even more impact with their campaigns down the line. Best of all, it showed how better results can arise from achieving the same online reach in a shorter period of time. “When we experiment and break barriers with our marketing, we’ve always seen great results,” said Kunal Dubey, Flipkart’s director of marketing. “This year’s Flipkart Fashion campaign was no different. Frontloading our digital spend and using our audience signals to optimize over time turned out to be more effective than we could’ve ever imagined.”

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1  ComScore Video Multi-Platform, India, June 2018, 18+ population.

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18 Never Flip Our Cart—We Are ‘Flipkart’: A Case Study on E-commerce Giant Flipkart

• Published: August 2022
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Flipkart is not an Indian company since it is registered in Singapore and majority of its shareholders are foreigners. Because foreign companies are not allowed to do multi-brand e-retailing in India, Flipkart sells goods in India through a company called WS Retail. Other third-party sellers or companies can also sell goods through the Flipkart platform. Flipkart now employs more than 15,000 people. Flipkart allows payment methods such as cash on delivery, credit or debit card transactions, net banking, e-gift voucher, and card swipe on delivery. On 15 September 2007, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related) started Flipkart as an online bookstore. The two had known each other since 2005 when they attended the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-Delhi) together and were colleagues at Amazon briefly. Eleven years later, the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, has agreed to buy a controlling stake in the company, Softbank chief executive officer Masayoshi Son said today (09 May). Flipkart’s journey has been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride. The company went from record-breaking investments and an acquisition spree to failed business experiments and devaluations—only to bounce back.

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• Development
• Digital Marketing

Flipkart Case Study: Marketing and Advertising Campaigns

Flipkart is an e-commerce Indian-based online marketplace, founded in 2007 by two friends Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal . The fact is that Binny Bansal is a former employee of Amazon. Sachin had referred Binny to Amazon, which till then had been working in the company for more than a year.

When Flipkart was launched, it was initially aimed at selling books before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials and groceries, and lifestyle products.

According to Redseer, in October 2023, Flipkart had a 64% market share of India’s e-commerce industry.

Flipkart, currently with a strength of 33,000 employees, has 295 million registered users and over 12 million daily visits. Flipkart’s technology has enabled it to deliver 8.5 million shipments per month – and that number is increasing year on year.

According to Crunchbase, The total funding amount to be received by Flipkart by 2023 is US$ 12.9 billion.

On This Page:

Flipkart: Warehousing & Shipments

Logistics is one of the most important aspects of any successful e-commerce platform. Flipkart ships more than 100000 items in a day which makes managing the logistics an overwhelming task for the company.

Also, the cost of delivery is paid by the company itself, making logistics a financially complicated issue. Hence in order to successfully manage the logistics. Flipkart uses its in-house logistics known as eKart‟ (EKL).

The e-commerce company created E-Cart as a personal brand in April 2009 to serve the B2C side of WS-Retail, Flipkart and currently reaches consumers in around 150 cities.

eKart currently provides services like Delivery Logistics, Reverse Logistics and cash on Delivery. It also provides customer support and technology integration for order tracking, customer notifications, and reporting.

Digital Marketing Strategies

Let’s look at how Flipkart used digital marketing to promote its products and services.

Flipkart mostly targets Indians who use the internet and don’t have time to visit offline shopping stores. Although its target audience is scattered across different market segments as consumers of all demographic backgrounds can find products of interest to them, 85% of its audience is between the age group of 16 to 55 years.

Search Engine Optimization 

If we talk about organic traffic, Flipkart has achieved tremendous results through search engine optimization. 

Flipkart is India’s largest online retailer and has worked hard to optimise its website for search engines. Flipkart appears in the top 5 results for every product search, and this is possible because Flipkart has invested heavily in SEO.

Social Media Marketing

Flipkart continues to win over the audience on social media, duly manned by celebrity influencers apart from its roster of brand ambassadors from time to time. They often run campaigns for specific sales, opportunities, and brands.

• Flipkart gets 79.08% of website visits from Youtube.
• From Facebook 7.71%.
• 3.99% of People prefer to share Flipkart products on WhatsApp with friends and relatives. which is a sign of brand management and trust in Flipkart.

Video Advertisement on YouTube

As the data mentioned above shows that Flipkart gets the most traffic from YouTube. So now have to look at and understand the Flipkart video advertising strategy.

Celebrities Marketing Campaign

Flipkart is known for its collaborations. It also makes particular investments in star power and celebrity marketing. Flipkart keeps on collaborating with various famous personalities year after year.

One of the memorable and recent collaborations was with Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt on “#IndiaKaFashionCapital”.

Television Ads

Flipkart and its subsidiaries – Myntra and PhonePe – have seen a significant increase in their television commercials since August, when they were acquired by US retail giant Walmart. The last time Flipkart launched a branding campaign with the tagline ‘Ab Har Vish Hogi Puri’ was when it spent massive marketing dollars to create brand awareness.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is commission-based marketing by which a person can earn rewards in the form of commission for marketing the products of another person or company.

Flipkart undertakes the responsibility of marketing its products to third parties known as affiliates and shares a portion of the profit on the sale of the products.

Affiliate programs of e-commerce portals like Flipkart and Amazon are some of the legitimate ways to earn money online in 2022. The Flipkart portal provides almost everything needed for a common man.

From beauty to baby care products to fashion to electronics and from beauty to baby care products, everything can be found on this online portal. All you need is good traffic to your website or blog.

Flipkart vs Amazon

The presence of two of the biggest brands in the Indian market has made the industry highly competitive. Since both have entered the private-label business to increase sales. Both introduced unique features and value-added services and expanded into specific areas to compete with their businesses.

Although Amazon is a world-recognized brand but in India, Flipkart is always 1 step ahead of Amazon.

SWOT Analysis: Flipkart

• The supply chain
• Strong brand value and brand awareness
• Advertising and promotion
• Strategy acquisition
• late delivery
• IT Infrastructure

Business Model of Flipkart

Flipkart, which has redefined shopping in India, operates on a B2C (business-to-consumer model). Flipkart started with a direct-to-consumer model selling books and some other products, before turning to a marketplace model that connects sellers and buyers and expands its catalogue.

Today, it sells everything from smartphones to clothes to furniture to refrigerators to FMCG accessories – and yes, books too.

Flipkart claims to have millions of sellers from across India who list their products in over 80 categories. The average consumer may not care about who the seller is and the relationship he has with Flipkart. Whereas the seller who hasn’t exactly reached out to the customer can now do so thanks to Flipkart’s platform. To facilitate this transaction and fulfil the order, Flipkart charges different percentages as the commission fees from the seller.

List of Flipkart Subsidiaries

Here is the list of 10 Flipkart subsidiaries with a short description and the date of acquiring these companies.  

• Myntra – It’s another ecommerce online store acquired by Flipkart in May 2014. 
• PhonePe – is an Indian digital payment and financial technology company that Flipkart acquired in April 2016.
• Cleartrip – This is a travel booking search engine globally famous for its incredible service. Flipkart acquired 100 per cent of Cleartrip’s shareholding in April 2021.
• Flipkart Health – This is an online pharmacy, also known as SastaSundar. Flipkart acquired SastaSundar in December 2021.
• Ekart – is a logistics company that delivers 10 million orders per month. Flipkart acquired eKart in 2015.
• Shopsy – Like Flipkart, shopsy is another ecommerce platform that Flipkart acquired in July 2021. 
• Flipkart Wholesale – This platform mainly focuses on B2B, in other words, WS retail. We have yet to learn the old name of this company, but Flipkart acquired it in 2012. 
• Jeeves-F1 – Jeeves & F1, both part of the Flipkart Group of companies, are among India’s most prominent third-party neutral service providers offering comprehensive lifecycle management for various categories, including Mobility Consumer Electronics, Home Appliances, Furniture, IT & IT Peripherals, AV & Enterprise Solutions. 
• Yaantra – is a single window stopover that caters to all smartphone queries, such as broken glass, water damage, software problem, power issue etc. with the best in the industry services. Flipkart Group acquired electronics ecommerce firm Yaantra in January 2022. 
• ANS Commerce – is India’s #1 full-stack e-commerce enabler helping brands sell online. Flipkart acquired ANS Commerce in June 2022 to strengthen its e-commerce system via technological innovation. 

In Conclusion

However, the situation is not as dire as it may seem. Flipkart’s magical Bansal touch may have disappeared, but its collective expertise and experience to deal with the Indian audience live on. The quick solution to tackle COVID-19 and offering essential items to the cities by Flipkart is commendable. However, e-retailers should seek to gain their market share by winning the trust of their customers rather than money.

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Flipkart Success Story and Case Study

In this article, we will take a detailed look at the case study and success story of e-commerce giant Flipkart , which has inspired thousands of budding entrepreneurs to go after their dreams even if the path is full of problems, obstacles and initial disappointments.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents :

How was flipkart founded.

• Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny are not brothers

Flipkart Strategic Expansion

• Cashing on the COD payment option
• The challenges faced by Flipkart
• Changes in leadership

Flipkart Acquisitions

• Flipkart Reward Program

Flipkart Failures

The founders of Flipkart – Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal – are former IIT Delhi graduates. They left their lucrative jobs at Amazon to achi eve their entrepreneurial dreams. As a result, Flipkart was launched in October of 2007, with the aim of selling books online.

The plan was simple – c ustomers would place an order for books through Flipkart and get them delivered right at their doorstep. They started their journey from a 2-bedroom apartment and made just 20 shipments in its debut year. Reportedly, the company was set up with just 4 lakh rupees and now its valuation has been estimated to be roughly $24.9 billion .

No, F lipkart f ounders Sachin and Binny are not brothers

Although the two founders share the same last name, they are not related. Also, both of them have done their graduation from the same college but they were a batch apart and weren’t classmat es. Their first meeting happened at the common Amazon office , which was running a technology development centre in the southern city since 2004 .

Sachin was the one who came up with big ideas and a long-term vision while Binny took care of the implementation part. Together, they were bound for glory which they eventually received before parting ways in 2018 .

Flipkart opened up its first office in Bengaluru in the year 2008. This was followed by new offic es in Delhi and Mumbai in 2009 . The same year the ambitious startup got its first capital investment of $1 million from Accel Partners , a well-known investment firm. By the end of 2009 , the company had nearly 150 employees .

Here’ s a timeline of the flow of funds that helped Flipkart grow:

2012: Flipkart announced a $150 million funding round led by South Africa-based tech majors named Naspers . By this time Flipkart had a valuation of $1 billion, thus becoming a part of the Unicorn startup club!

2013 : The company again raised a sum of $ 20 0 million from its existing investors. Another $160 million was raised from Sofina, Morgan Stanley, Dragoneer and Vulcan capital. In this period, Flipkart had an estimated valuation of nearly $1.6 billion.

2014 : Flipkart acquired Myntra for nearly $280 million. It then raised $210 million from DST Global. The valuation was recorded at $2.6 billion.

2014 : The same year Flipkart witnessed a $1 billion funding round from GIC Singapore. As a result, the company valuation shot up to $7 billion within 3 months.

2014 : In another round, the company raised as many as $700 million from hedge funds such as Steadview Capital, Greenoaks , sovereign wealth fund Qatar I nvestment Authority, T Rowe Price. The valuation at this point stood at an enormous $11 billion.

2015: Flipkart reached a landmark valuation at $15.5 billion. It again raised roughly $700 million from its investors.

2016: Flipkart would like to forget this year as the company witnessed the first big markdown by a Mutual Fund (Morgan Stanley). The valuation came down to $11 billion.

2016: Flipkart kept receiving continuous markdowns by a number of mutual fund investors such as T Rowe Price, Vanguard and Fidelity.

2016: A Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund made a significant cut to the value of its Flipkart shares. As a result, the valuation wit nessed a further drop to $5.6 billion.

2018: Walmart acquired 77% stake in Flipkart for $16 billion .

Cashin g on the Cash On Delivery Payment (COD) option

Flipkart was among the first major e-commerce players in India to introduce the cash on delivery option for its customers in 2010. There are many reasons as to why cash on delivery plays an important role in the e-commerce sector. For instance:

Helps develop a sense of trust

When Flipkart started operating in the country, it knew that people will be doubtful about any kind of scam or loss if they stuck to prepaid orders. So they introduced cash on delivery (COD) payment option so that people can place orders with trust, without any fear of losing money.

No dependency on payment cards This point is especially valid for deliveries in rural or sub-urban areas, where people still rely heavily on cash for any kind of transaction.

Allows some time to gather money for payment Sometimes e-commerce companies like Flipkart launch exciting offers which are very hard to ignore for people fond of online shopping. Choosing cash on delivery gives them some time to gather cash so that they do not miss out on the limited-time offer.

The Challenges faced by Flipkart

The term e-commerce was almost unknown when Flipkart launched its ambitious startup. Many market experts dismissed online shopping as a western concept, stating that Indian customers wanted to ‘ touch and feel’ whatever they buy . Here are a number of challenges that the company came across in its long journey:

Supply Chain and Logistics

In order to procure products from thousands of sellers, maintain inventory and ensure timely delivery, an effective supply chain and logistics network was the first challenge that Flipkart had to endure.

Reverse logistics is still a major issue for the company as more than 15% of shipments are returned by customers for a number of reasons. These bring huge losses to the company.

Managing Inventory

Flipkart has major warehouses across many cities, especially metropolitan areas , such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Noida, and many other cities. Furthermore, they have small regional distribution centres in over 600 locations. With Flipkart’s “F-Assured” program, you can expect to get quality products delivered as the company practices strict quality checks before shipping any item from its warehouse.

Cash On Delivery Issues

COD does have many benefits for customers, but it indeed puts burden on e-commerce firms such as Flipkart. Many customers return the product without paying; and the company ends up losing all the money spent on procuring, storing and shipping the product. That is why prepaid payment options are always favourite among sellers listed on Flipkart.

Managing vendors and Logistics Provider

Managing lakhs of sellers on a platform is a herculean task in itself. Added to that is the issue of managing all logistics service providers (LSPs), if the company is dependent on 3 rd party services. Flipkart, however, has its in-house logistics company, named E k art, which ensures smooth and on-time deliveries.

Funding Issues

For any startup to prosper, a continuous flow of funds is a must. These funds not only aid improving existing services and facilities but also help the companies to bring ne w, innovative ideas to reality. Fortunately for Flipkart, there hasn’t been any shortage of funds, as seen in the timeline mentioned above.

Tough Competition from rival Amazon India

When Amazon entered the online shopping market in India in 2013, many exp erts feared that it may attract Flipkart’s loyal customers with great service, offers, international brand value , video streaming services and no shortage of funds. However, despite Amazon being a threat, Flipkart is still the largest online retailer in India as of 2019 with a market share of 31.9%, while Amazon India is following closely with a share of 31.2%.

The festive season in India often becomes a hot battleground for these two giants as they offer great deals to customers in the form of Flipkart Big Billion Days and Amazon Great Indian Festival.

Changes in Leadership

Co-Founder Sachin Bansal quit as the CEO of Flipkart in 2016, presumably due to performance-oriented issues. He was succeeded by Binny Bansal as the former took over the position of Executive Chairman.

In the year 2017, Kalyan Krishnamurthy took charge as the new CEO of Flipkart. He was previously an executive in Flipkart investor, Tiger Global. Upon Krishnamurthy’s appointment, Binny Bansal became CEO of the entire group which includes portals such as Myntra-Jabong, PhonePe and logistics company Ekart.

Flipkart bought online apparel portal Myntra for roughly $300 million in the year 2014. Two years later, they acquired online fashion retailer Jabong in a deal worth $70 million.

The same year Flipkart acquired digital payments startup PhonePe. It also acquired Ebay India in exchange for an equity stake . Ebay also agreed to make a $500 million investment in its business before handing it over to Flipkart in 2017.

The Flipkart reward program – Flipkart Plus

Whenever you shop on Flipkart, the company rewards you with 2 Super Coins for every 100 rupees spent. As soon as you collect 200 Super Coins, you can use them to become a plus member – and the best part is that the coins will not be deducted. You can use these coins to get heavy discounts on Flipkart products and other products and services offered by partner companies. With Flipkart Plus membership, the company offers you the following benefits:

• Free and Fast Delivery
• Early access to big billion day sales
• Redeem coins for rewards
• Superior customer support

Failures are meant for growth. If a company does not embrace its failures as much as its successes, they are bound for long-term loss. Flipkart too has had its fair share of failures, which have been listed below:

Flipkart tried to get into the online music streaming business in 2011. For this purpose, they acquired a digital content platform named Mime360. Flyte was launched in the year 20 12; however, with tough competition from existing portals offering free services and the problem posed by piracy, Flyte had to shut down in 2013.

Before Flipkart acquired PhonePe, it tried experimenting with a payment gat eway named PayZippy in 2013. The project failed miserably as the payment gateway was unable to bring merchants on-board. It was shut in 2014.

Going A pp-only for mobile users

In order to push mobile users to download their apps, Flipkart blocked them from accessing their website and prompted them to download the app. The move was apparently backfiring and therefore Flipkart had to reinstate the mobile website.

If you look closely at the journey of India’s home-grown e-commerce giant Flipkart , you will see that the company never lost faith in its investors and customers. Despite tough competition from arch rivals Amazon, the company has been going strong despite many major changes in leadership in the past few years.

E-commerce has become a huge part of our daily lives. Owing to the number of job opportunities and huge business scope that the sector provides, every individual should take up a course in e-commerce marketing .

Thanks for reading 🙂

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