FLIPKART COMPANY

ITFM assignmentSubmitted to,

Submitted by, Harsh Vikram Singh [11081]

Section B

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ContentsHistory of Flip kart.......................................................................................................................4

Business Model and USP...............................................................................................................5

Web Presence and its importance.................................................................................................5

Result of Efforts(marketing efforts)............................................................................................7

Flipcart technologies:-...................................................................................................................9

Features of Flipkart:-..................................................................................................................11

How they reached to customers and made a difference:.............................................................12

Success and Future......................................................................................................................15

Conclusion....................................................................................................................................15

Reference.....................................................................................................................................16

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History of Flip kartFlipkart is an Indian e-commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. Started by two IIT graduates, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007 with an investment of Rs 400,000 the company has revolutionized the idea of shopping in India. Today the company has a revenue of Rs 50 billion. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal were working in Amazon.com previously. Flipkart though started with books but expanded to electronic goods and a variety of other products. Flipkart offers multiple methods to make payments for the orders placed like credit card, debit card, net banking, e-gift voucher and Cash on Delivery.

Flipkart started with selling books. In 2010, they added to their catalogue media (including music, movies and games) and mobile phones and accessories.In 2011, product launches included cameras, computers, pens & office supplies, computer accessories, home and kitchen appliances, personal care, health care, gaming consoles, audio players and televisions. In 2012, product launches includes health & beauty products, Life style products which includes watches, belts, bags & luggage. Flipkart became one of the top 100 Indian sites and was credited for being India's largest online bookseller[4] with over 7 million titles on offer. Flipkart broke even in March 2008 and claims to have had at least 100% growth every quarter to quarter.From a two-member embryonic idea to a 4,500-member company, the Flipkart story is not just about stupendous success and mind-numbing numbers. Much more than that, it's about redefining customer experience and breaking online shopping inertia.Started in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the Bangalore-based firm ships close to 30,000 items per day. Or, in other words, 20 products per minute.

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.com was launched by a passionate group of professionals who aimed at giving Indians a good online shopping experience and excellent customer service. Technological initiatives were focused on making the search for books faster and more convenient.

Flipkart is currently the only authorised online reseller of iPods in India.

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Business Model and USP

The cash-on-delivery model adopted by Flipkart has proven to be of great significance since the credit card and net banking penetration is very low in India.In November 2011, 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 utilised to make purchases on the site, as and when required.This made shopping very easy for costumers.

Web Presence and its importance

Flipkart does not have any showroom anywhere in the country. The web presence of Flipkart has played a great role in the marketing strategy of “word of mouth “. The web presence of the site was through the following ways :

Website : www.flipkart.com

On Google, the ranking of the site is improved on search to list out the website and easy access. Improving ratings with search engine has promoted the name and popularity among people.

There are internet forums where people post their feedback on Flipkart . The presence of Flipkart in such forums and social media is equally encouraging . Having a page in Facebook and having fan following in Twitter are all means by which the company can advertise about its new arrivals and offers. The company has diversified product sales into many areas that the company want to advertise and reach out to the world.

Affiliate Marketing is also an attempt by the company to increase the outreach. Here there are links outside the website of the company and its area of commerce which directly guide the potential customer to the required website. This leads to possibility of impulse purchase and adds on to the revenue of the Company.

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Discoverability:-

Yahoo news-flipcart used to feed yahoo news on its product page.They do this because this increases the density of keywords in that page.This will going to improve the SEO(search engine optimization) of flipcart even though product discriminations are same for flipcart and its compititors.

Payments:-

Earlier there was some of the common problems while making online payment like no credit card or net banking facility,fear to transact online,repeat transcations failures,no access to web.So what flipcart did to increase the web presence. Flipkart made 4 different Payment Gateways. They introduced Cash-on-Delivery. Then they are also doing order on phone. Payment via DD/Cheque is also accepted.

2 bassic things that flipcart currently doing are:-

A)Auto redirection to banking site: Unlike most other ecommerce sites, Flipkart never lands you on CCavenue page, customers are auto redirected to the banks page where the info is required to be filled.Flipkart by-passes 1 unnecessary page by passing the required parameters directly to CCavenue and not through a user interface.

B)  Banks Status: Flipkart maintains its own real time status if the bank’s netbanking is working or not. So there are no surprises after customer have chosen the bank and then go to the netbanking page.

Flipcart Developed on the following key words as well.

Google AdWords –Flipkart places her ad on google to increase the web

presence.This a best method for increasing the web presence and for advertising.In google AdWords flipkart should uses google AdWords tools likeKeywordsFlipkartFlipkart.comwww.flipkart.comflipkart promotional codeflipkart IndiaThis keywords are far less competitive. It means very few people bid for these keywords in Google Adwords. So, Flipkart also don’t have to worry about losing the visitors with these keywords.With this keyword are being searched thousands of time,like. ‘Flipkart’ is being searched for around 60,500 times, ‘flipkart.com’ for 12,100, ‘www.flipkart.com’ for 5400 and ‘flipkart india’ for  480 times. The total becomes 78480 times for pure branded keywords.

Search engine optimization :Flipkart advertises through SEO.It is a process of improving the visibility of website or web page in search engine.  In general, the

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earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.For Example-If a person wants to purchase a mobile online and in google he types purchase mobile then the option of flipkart should appear on the first page and better if on the first link that you can purchase mobile from here.

Focused on user experience :-Mostly every E-commerce site,tried to put the or tried to cram the maximum amount of information possible into every single page where to increase the web presence and to attract the customers flipcart focused on providing only the relevant information.

The Company focuses its business in four ways:

1. New customers who visit their site by hearing about it “word of mouth“ and first timers.

2. Regular customers who visit the site frequently due to the confidence they have in the site.

3. Customers who like the “timely delivery” and wish to receive their goods applied online reach them on time.

4. Impulse purchases

Result of Efforts(marketing efforts)Flipcart now deals in 12 product categories.Flipkart.com has a strong presence on Facebook, with a huge number of fans. The company has more than 690,000 fans and has used easy, interesting conversations to engage them. Flipkart.com has 2,877 followers on twitter. Flipkart.com’s Alexa global ranking is 2,101, while its India ranking is 164.

Indian consumers are much more cautious about shopping online as compared to the West. They are reluctant to use credit card details. The cash on delivery service has helped a lot of traditional consumers turn to online shopping,"

Also, the model has unbolted the lock to a whole new customer base which hasn't been exposed to the benefits of plastic money as yet or those with a default technological handicap.

Right from browsing to delivery, customer can track his order. customer can even pre-order an unreleased book, get good prices, even the customer service is very strong. Raise any issue, it's efficiently resolved.

"When the company, the customer experience offered by e-commerce sites was below average. Flipcart aim was to address this. company feel that the focus on customer satisfaction and ownership of the customer experience will going to worked out in our favour.

The superior customer attraction made by the company was because of the discount facility reason.Company strategy was to provide discount almost on every product.

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Flipkart started with books, but the company stocks nearly 11.5 million titles, "making flipkart the largest book retailer in India. According to data, flipkart has 80 per cent share of the online book market".

Flipkart already had a proven model execution with books and extending to other verticals did not need infrastructural changes. Flipkart’s real achievement has been in solving the pain points in Indian ecommerce that most well funded players are still complaining about.

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Flipcart technologies:-With this Flipkart.com has used many information technologies to update them so that they can have maximum reach of their customers and have variety of books,CDs,DVDs etc.

Use open source software for their basic infrastructure like the operating system.

They use Linux as their implementation technology for resource management, task

management and file management.

OPEN SOURCE DATABASE

Flipkart works with popular open source products such as Ubuntu, Mysql,Apache.

DATABASE MANAGEMENT:

 FlipKart’s current model is based on partnership with local book vendors who keep updating

the inventory. The process is being automated for efficiency. There are around 3.5 million

books in its database.

They use an ERP System for building systems for fulfillment operations, end-to-end. The

number of different business flows that need to be dealt with here is a major challenge for

any pure-play e-commerce business. Ever increasing users and data adds to challenges.

Systems need to be capable of handling huge amounts of structured data, working with large

complex code bases with software which can scale with the number of users and data.

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:

A specific example where e-commerce entities are able to use technology to compete well is

in the area of Search Engine Optimization. Flipkart has built an advantage over its

competitors based on its SEO. Flipkart can be found on 130 keyword searches on search

engines.

DECISION MAKING: DATA MINING AND DATA WAREHOUSING :

Given the explosive rate of growth, decision making based on past experiences and rules of

thumb results in sub-optimal outcomes. What is needed is data driven decision making and an

analytics team to enable that.

 The analytics team with functions like data mining, data warehousing, predictive analytics or

in general tackling problem solving, analytical reasoning and solving fuzzy problems goes

beyond building reporting systems makers.

LOGISTICS :

From putting books online to delivering, there is a lot of work to be done. For this,

Flipkart has about 100 people working in the back end, which comprises ordering,

stocking operations, packaging, shipping, vendor management, etc. They work with

300 book distributors in 5 cities from whom they procure books as well as 4

International publishers.

Others: With the new technologies and new way of doing business problems such as of making showrooms,gaodams where goods are stored are being sorted out.As in online business no showrooms are required.This online marketing has changed tah conventional way of doing business,it increases the customer reach,24 hours shopping can be done.clear study can be done on online business,Good product at a lesser price etc.This all are the benefits that flipkart got from her online business method.

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Features of Flipkart:-

24*7 customer service :-Flipcart provides 24 hours and 7 days customer

service.Customer may contact flipkart anytime and can ask for their product

details and other things.

Digital cart :-Flipcart provides a service for digital cart,In this a person can do

multiple shopping,means if a person goes for shopping and he purchases MP3

palyer then he decided to purchase Television,then something else,so all this

items will get stored in one cart,and at last all the total payment can be made.

Diversification of products :-flipcart started their business with books and

later they decided to diversified themselves into different categories like

cameras,computers,mobiles,gming,music,T.V,home and kitchen appliances

Begs,watches and etc.This strategy of diversification of products helps them in

growing their business.

Safe and secure shopping :-As shopping is done online,so some amount of

payment to be made online only either through debit card or crdit card.people

never feel secure while making payment online ,but flipkart essures that making

payment online on their website is completely safe and secure.Shopping at

flipcart.com is 100% safe.Credit card payment are processed through the HDFC

Bank payment gateway, as well as payment gateways (EBS/ccAvenue) that

interface with various banks. HDFC Bank uses the latest encryption technology

to protect credit card information. It encrypts customers credit card number so

that it cannot be read as the information travels over the Internet.

Customer can also share the product info with his friends by on clicking social

networking sites i.e. facebook.com or twitter.com

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Tracking of Home delivery :-Main feature of flipkart is providing home

delivery.Once the order is placed customer gets an ID and by that ID customer

can able to know the current status of his/her product.

E-gift voucher :-Flipcart provides e-gift vouchers also to the

customers.Sometimes with the purchase of products they also gives some e-gift

vouchers.

Discount in products :-The main feature that flipcart provides is that they

provide discount almost in every goods.

30 days replacement guarentees :-The product purchased can be

replaced within 30 days.

Cash on delivery :-One big reason for flipkart success is the concept of cash

on delivery.Almost 60% of its sales happen through this sale.cash on delivery

created trust in the minds of Indian customers who were always very weary of

making payments online.

How they reached to customers and made a difference:There are many methods or ways by which flipkart have reached to customer and made a difference.some of them are explained below:-

In its social media initiatives, Flipkart.com aims at facilitating an easier conversation channel for customers and users. Conversations are to the point and are targeted at specific issues, thoughts and ideas.As told before Flipkart.com began activities to make its presence felt on Facebook and Twitter about a year ago. The company has also used LinkedIn to connect with people. The popularity of the site has grown through recommendations.people recommending the site to their family, friends and co-workers . The people who manage their channels infuse Flipkart's culture and personality in what they do or say in tandem with their own personality. “Transparency and Honesty is the key.

A)Original products with original warranty:-Flipcart provides original products.The product that is been displaced on website the same product with same feature will be deliverd to the customer.Warranty on every product will be given.If product finds out to be defected then it will surely be replaced.

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B)Hidden charges:- There are absolutely no hidden charges when you make a purchase with Flipkart. Flipkart offer free delivery if the order is Rs. 200 or over, otherwise customer will be charged an additional Rs. 30 for delivery. The prices listed for all items are final and all-inclusive. The prices consumer sees on flipkart product pages are exactly same what he needs to pay.

C)Can check current status of an order:- To check the status of pending orders, click on the “My Account” link in the top right of any page on flipkart store. This will take customer to My Account page, where one can click on the “My Orders” link to view the status of all orders. To view the status of a specific order, click on the “Order Number”. After your order is shipped out from our warehouse, flikart will send you a mail with the shipping details.

D)3 day price guarantee for mobiles:- Due to the nature of product, there may be fluctuations in price from time to time in mobile. If customer have purchased a phone from flipkart and he see a drop in price in the 72 hours following his purchase, do bring it to company notice. The difference in amount will be refunded to the customer.This is one of the best thing that made a difference and cutomers started running towards flipkart.

E)Wallet:- The Wallet is a prepaid instrument that enables one to shop on Flipkart.com multiple times by making a payment only ONCE. One can make a payment for a certain amount and this will be added to his account as prepaid balance in his Wallet. When he make an order, he can choose to use the Wallet as the mode of payment and the amount will be deducted from the balance in your Wallet.

F)low cost:-Flipcart provides every product at a low price compare to market.So most of the people wants to purchase from flipkart only as they are getting good quality product at a lower price.

G)Advertisements:-Flipkarts now a days also showing very attractive Ad’s,people are liking those Ad’s specially children as in there Ad’s children are only promoting their brand name.Some advertisement pics are as-

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Flipkart-No kidding No worries

 

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Success and Future

The start-up that transformed the face of Indian E-Commerce. Flipkart.com grew manifold to become the brand that all know and love. Positioning of the company that it is reliable has quite hit the target. Flipkart's success can be primarily attributed to the fact that at the end of the day, they have a great variety of products, fantastic discounts,  various payment options, and an on-time delivery system. That's essentially what any consumer would want, and Flipkart understands that. They were successful in removing the skepticism about online shopping from the mind of the Indian consumer, a feat that many bigger players at the time could not accomplish. Much like any start up, they faced several challenges initially. 2 of which are of significant importance, are the cost price of books they sold, and the on-time delivery. 

The 'on time delivery', another seemingly novel idea was something that Flipkart seemed to pioneer in. They used courier services in the beginning, which was the norm in most online shops, but these were not always proven effective, even after premium rates were paid. In adaption to this need, Flipkart has now developed their own delivery system where their own people deliver books right to your doorstep, sometimes within 12 hours of placing the order. They even have a Live Inventory System that displays items that are in stock, and approximately how many days it would take to get delivered. In addition to the great service they provide, Flipkart has some very memorable adverts, and a strong social media presence. This has helped create a friendly, fun and customer-centric brand image. Nowadays Flipkart report to ship approximately 30000 items per day. The number will keep increasing with more and more people talking about the company.

Conclusion :- Flipkart,the first billion dollar Internet company from India (by 2015 estimates) is by far the leading on line store in the nation.As by its strategies and way of doing business it can be concluded that in coming years flipkart may become ASIA’s number 1 online selling company.her method of creating web presence is too good and customer attraction strategies are also unforgettable.Customers gets the best quality product at lower price.  Flipkart succeeded in India because it provided books & accessories at comparatively lower price then offline retailers. Another point was that India's courier system is very primitive and one need a very good logistic system to provide better service to the customer.Flipkart learned it quick and managed well. 

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Reference www.flipkart.com

http://kannanwrites.hubpages.com

http://www.youtube.com

http://www.thehindu.com

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article3290735.ece

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/flipkart-online-shopping-e-commerce-order-books-online/1/20797.html

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