[Marketing Management]

1 [P1539]

MARKETING MANAGEMENT P1539

[Marketing Management]

2 [P1539]

Submitted By: kishan Pethani

Index

Questions Page NO.

1) (1) Introduction of flipcart.com 1

2) (2) 4Ps of Marketing (flipcart.com) 1

3) (3)The marketing strategies of Producer

(flipcart.com) 6

(4) SWOT analysis (flipcart.com) 7

4) (5) Input of marketing strategies and output of

it. (flipcart.com) 9

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5) Introduction of flipcart.com Flipkart is an e-commerce company.The company is registered in Singapore, but has its

headquarters in Bangalore, Karnataka. Flipkart has launched its own product range under the

name "DigiFlip" with products including tablets, USBs, and laptop bags. Flipkart (Company) was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian

Institute of Technology Delhi. They worked for Amazon.com, and left to create their new company

incorporated in October 2007 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd.

The first product they sold was the book Leaving Microsoft to Change The World. Flipkart now employs

more than 33,000 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. After failure of its 2014 Big Billion

Sale, Flipkart recently completed the second edition of Big Billion Sale held between October 13 and

17. Where it is reported that they saw a business turnover of 300 million in gross merchandise volume.

2010: WeRead, a social book discovery tool.

2011: Mime360, a digital content platform company.

2011: Chakpak.com, a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos. Flipkart acquired

the rights to Chakpak's digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10,000 movies and close to

50,000 ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not

use the brand name.

2012: Letsbuy.com, an Indian e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an

estimated US$25 million. Letsbuy.com was closed down and all traffic to Letsbuy has been diverted to

Flipkart.

2014: Acquired Myntra.com in an estimated ₹ 20 billion (2,000 crore, about US$319 million) deal.

2015: Flipkart acquired a mobile marketing start-up Appiterate as to strengthen its mobile platform.

6) 4Ps of Marketing (flipcart.com)

What is marketing?

Putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time.

You just need to create a product that a particular group of people want, put it on sale some place

that those same people visit regularly, and price it at a level which matches the value they feel

they get out of it; and do all that at a time they want to buy. Then you've got it made!

The marketing mix and the 4Ps of marketing are often used as synonyms for each other.

The 4Ps is one way – probably the best-known way – of defining the marketing mix, and was

first expressed in 1960 by E J McCarthy.

4Ps are : 1) Product 2) Place 3) Price 4) Promotion

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Product/Service What does the customer want from the product/service? What needs does it satisfy?

What features does it have to meet these needs?

Are there any features you've missed out?

Are you including costly features that the customer won't actually use?

How and where will the customer use it?

What does it look like? How will customers experience it?

What size, colour, and so on, should it be?

What is it to be called?

How is it branded?

How is it differentiated versus your competitors?

What is the most it can cost to provide, and still be sold sufficiently profitably?

Example: flipcart.com - Website is great, easy to use, and easy to browse through the products, add products to wish list or to

a cart, get product reviews and opinions, pre-order products, make convenient payments using

different methods and better SEO.

- New fechurs is Mobile Application (Because customer have own smart phones. customer can’t search

on website). So, flipcart decide to make mobile application and people can divert on mobile app and

get more discount on mobile application only. And new fechur in mobile application is that chatting

with your friends.

-

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- Quality level of the products is absolutely fine. Because packaging is very good. Products are packed

in such a way that they are Tamper proof, weather proof and breakage proof.

- Product line on Flipkart.com have warranties as promised by the brand of the product if applicable.

(30 day replacement or 10 days replacement or if damage than replacement)

- Flipkart as a brand has already differentiated itself as a pioneering retailer, Trustworthy in terms of swift

services and secure payments, quality-oriented products with lower price offerings than

retail market), innovative product line, customer delightful service which has helped them to form its

own distinctive image better than few unheard competitors such as Tradus.in andIndiaplaza.com.

- Products some unique product features ofFlipkart.com such as

Wishlist, E-gift voucher, chat with friends, E-Gifting

- Flipkart 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

- Easy way to search in website like Photo. Easy listing. Track your Order. Local good sellers can sell

own Products.( https://seller.flipkart.com)

- Customer support and solve his/her quarry

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- Powerfull listing

Place Where do buyers look for your product or service?

If they look in a store, what kind? A specialist boutique or in a supermarket, or both? Or online?

Or direct, via a catalogue?

How can you access the right distribution channels?

Do you need to use a sales force? Or attend trade fairs? Or make online submissions? Or send

samples to catalogue companies?

What do your competitors do, and how can you learn from that and/or differentiate?

Example: flipcart.com

- Power full Chain management. (E-cart logistics)

- When an order is placed they either serve the order from their inventory or procure the book

on demand from various supplier sand then deliver the customer.

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- As on date more than 80% orders of Flipkart are handled via warehouses which helps in quick

and efficient service.

- We deliver orders in 1 day in Tier-I cities and 2-3 days in Tier II cities and 3-5 days Tier III

cities

- Shipping and Courier would act as intermediaries in this process.

- Warehouses are located in the following cities, often nearairports.

Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, Kolkata

Price What is the value of the product or service to the buyer?

Are there established price points for products or services in this area?

Is the customer price sensitive? Will a small decrease in price gain you extra market share? Or

will a small increase be indiscernible, and so gain you extra profit margin?

What discounts should be offered to trade customers, or to other specific segments of your

market?

How will your price compare with your competitors?

Example: flipcart.com

- Price of the product taking account of various expenses such as Supplier expenses,

Transportation expenses, Packaging expenses, Shipping expenses, Courier expenses,

inventory maintenance expense, office and stationery expenses, sales and advertisement

expenses, taxes, depreciation, discount allowances and many more expenses.

- Differentiated themselves by giving best selections, best services at lowest best possible

prices.

- Discounts upto 35% across all categories.

- Upper edge in competitive pricing

- Competitive Pricing like Amazon.com, shopcluse.com, zopper.com, ebuy.com this are the

Competitors of flipcart. There are same price or low price on the other website.

Promotion

Where and when can you get across your marketing messages to your target market?

Will you reach your audience by advertising online, in the press, or on TV, or radio, or on

billboards? By using direct marketing mailshot? Through PR? On the Internet?

When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? Are there any wider

environmental issues that suggest or dictate the timing of your market launch, or the timing of

subsequent promotions?

How do your competitors do their promotions? And how does that influence your choice of

promotional activity?

Example: flipcart.com

- Employees of divisions like Website, Business Planning and Analytics, ERP, Business

Development, Product Management and Marketing, Supply-Chain Management and

CustomerSupport are generating revenue for it.

- Selection Criteria at Flipkart:-While years of experience are always beneficial for a

candidate, Flipkart's focus is to hire those who are able to consistently raise the bar and

introduce a variety of innovations to move this organization forward. As Flipkart grows, we

feel it is absolutely necessary that our employees are also able to grow professionally with

the organization.

- Adequate Training as per their roles and responsibilities is given to them accordingly and

incentives.

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- Telephone Sales force is only 2% of the total employees focussing to reduce the

unsold/goods not much in demand.

- Flipcart Work On affiliate program.(https://affiliate.flipkart.com/) if you have website you

can put flipcart’s advertise on your website or blog. And per click flipcart will give some

money.

- As internet/web strategy used Google Ad-words, blogs, social networking sites such as

twitter, facebook, used Google ad-words, e-mail campaigns.

7) The marketing strategies of Producer (flipcart.com) What is marketing strategies?

An organization's strategy that combines all of its marketing goals into one comprehensive

plan. A good marketing strategy should be drawn from market research and focus on the right

product mix in order to achieve the maximum profit potential and sustain the business.

Marketing strategy is the goal of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive

advantage.

A marketing strategy is a process or model to allow a company or organization to focus limited

resources on the best opportunities to increase sales and thereby achieve a sustainable

competitive advantage.

Example: flipcart.com

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Target to people to use Flipcart on own smart phone.

Flipkart's business model is much deeper and much expansive that could possibly elaborate

here. However, a few key points -

Rationalized supply chain - Inbound logistics

Strategic warehousing and distribution capability - Operations

Well aligned fulfilment process - Outbound logistics

All the three processes are extremely well integrated - first by a sound strategy, around which

the organizational structure is built (Strategy drives structure - Chandler)

So they have a strategy, and a complementing structure to support their strategy. The third critical

success factor for Flipkart is the technology as an enabler. A strong information systems is at the

core of the organization, which drives visibility and end-to-end integration across their supply

chain processes (inbound - operations - outbound) resulting in a well lubricated efficient

machine.

Flipkart, must be seen as a logistics company rather than a retail business. Although it sells

products to consumers, and hence is academically classified as a B2C business, the core of the

business lies in its efficient logistics, which allows it to sell products at attractive prices.

However, its competitive advantage is not in its retailing capabilities. Infact that aspect of the e-

commerce business is easily imitable and hence not sustainable. The sustainable competitive

advantage of Flipkart, lies in its logistics and operations infrastructure - which has a very high

barrier to entry: owing to its extensive capital investment and difficult to replicate strategy-

structure-culturemix.

Cons: Potential threat of the original replacing the imitated.

It is important to reflect upon the fact that its founder members (the Bansal's) have had an early

stint with Amazon and have successfully modeled Flipkart's business on Amazon strategy. So,

it would be fair to say that Flipkart imitated Amazon's model to an extent. However, owing to

governmental regulation and international trade barriers (read retail FDI restrictions), Amazon

has not yet been able to compete with Flipkart on an even keel. (Amazon operates as a

marketplace rather than a retailer). Amazon has all the infrastructure, culture, and technology

enablers in place that Flipkart has - and on a much larger scale. One other thing that they have

is huge financial muscle power - much larger than what Flipkart has. And the moment when

these restriction on FDI in retail are lifted, Amazon will be a major threat to Flipkart. And all

these acquisitions that Flipkart has been making, is to bulk up and brace up for the competition

it faces. It would be interesting to see whose bulk outweighs whom!

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8) SWOT analysis (flipcart.com)

S=Strengths, W=Weaknesses, O=Opportunities, T=Threats

Strengths: characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others.

Weaknesses: characteristics that place the business or project at a disadvantage relative to

others.

Opportunities: elements that the project could exploit to its advantage.

Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project.

Factors of SWOT:

internal factor – the strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization

external factors – the opportunities and threats presented by the environment external

to the organization

Example: flipcart.com

Strengths:

• 24*7 Customer support service.

• Price reduction or discounted price.

• Better Search Engine Optimization

• Advance advertising and promotion.

• Multiple payment method.

• EMI option availability

• E voucher and e-gifts

Weaknesses:

• Less internet knowledge in the small cities

• Less penetration in the small cities

• No delivery to remote areas.

• Negative perception about online transaction.

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Opportunities:

• Global availability & accessibility.

• More lucrative discounts to attract customers.

• Provide mobile application which can run without or minimum usage of internet

connection

• Start where houses in small villages or town.

Threats:

Penetration of new players in the market like:

Amazon

Snapdeal

EBay

Shopclues

Conclusion:

- One of the leading E-commerce portals of India.

- Customer satisfaction is the major concern

- “God of distribution”

- As e-commerce market is booming up rapidly we all are going to see some more

companies like Flipkart in the near future

9) Input of marketing strategies and output of it. (flipcart.com)

The purpose of management resources input/output strategy is to increase sales and profit under restricted

investments and manpower.

Example: flipcart.com

This case focuses on Flipkart’s ‘Big Billion Day’ sale which was launched on October 6, 2014.

It highlights the problems that occurred on the day of the sale and their adverse impact on the

customers and reputation of the company.

October being the festive season in India, the big e-commerce companies were looking to lure

buyers through various attractive discounts and offers. Flipkart too declared a sale on October 6,

2014. The company spent a huge amount of money on its ad campaigns, installing servers to

handle online traffic and deploying staff for processing the orders and delivering the goods.

Unfortunately for them, things did not turn out quite as they expected. Flipkart's servers crashed,

items went out of stock, and the prices of items changed during the sale. Buyers were outraged

and took to the social media to express their ire. Manufacturers too accused the company of

selling goods below the selling price. To protect the image of their company, Flipkart’s founders

sent out apology letters to the buyers regretting the inconvenience they had caused and assuring

them that they would deliver better service in future. Despite all the hue and cry, Flipkart

witnessed a mega sale of $100 million (Rs 6 billion) in just 10 hours.

Problems

Understand the sales strategies adopted by e-commerce companies.

Understand the problems that may arise in business due to lack of foresight.

Understand how companies need to handle customer dissatisfaction and safeguard image.