Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brahma111 | Hacker News Reader

Whereas I agree that FK is right there when it comes to technology, this seems a little far fetched headline. 4 yrs back during a mega sale, FK servers crashed and they rightfully earned a lot of flak for that. From then on, they have been doing a pretty decent job (adopting actor model, PWA to name a few). But Walmart is also not living under a rock. I have consulted with them and they are just as good as any other Enterprise. Their biggest challenge is their vast team size with each group doing their own stuff in silos. FK will not help them address that

View on HN

Flipkart does have a lot of expertise in last mile delivery and logistics. They manage to deliver in rural India where there are no proper addresses and infrastructure.

Plus, Flipkart likely has a lot of expertise in mobile as well, given how much of India's internet usage is now mobile-only.

I reckon that expertise is worth a lot for any company looking to expand in the developing world

> They manage to deliver in rural India where there are no proper addresses and infrastructure.

I don't think this is true.

You have to enter a pin code when you order from Flipkart. It's used to compute the delivery fee.

Flipkart also used to refuse to deliver products to some pincodes though the list of supported numbers has definitely expanded over the years.

In short, I don't know what their coverage level is, but it boils down to: you can't get a package delivered to anywhere where there is no post office.

In India, because of lack of infrastructure, you can order food from KFC without giving your name, address or any cash up front. The delivery guy simply tries to find the location you indicated and hopes that you show up with cash. I am guessing KFC simply pushes any losses downwards onto the branches or drivers.

It's fine for India, but I don't think a lot of the business models and know-how that works in India transfers easily to conditions in the U.S.

I live in Bangalore and it sounds like this is out of some kind of paralell reality.

KFC/pizza hut/dominoes don't set up shop in remote places 'without infrastructure'. It doesn't make "business sense".

They are mostly limited to cities. They don't deliver long distances, food delivery in general is limited to 2km, and they certainly don't deliver without a name, contact number and delivery address.

The point is you can give them any name, address or phone number you want. In most cases they won't even use the phone number, except for the driver if he can't find you when he is delivering the food.

How is this any different than the rest of the world? If you want your food delivered you should probably give them a findable address.

That is definitely not how it works, name address and phone number are mandatory with almost all delivery services. COD - Cash on Delivery is an additional option available because old time folks are not comfortable sharing their banking information with 3rd party services. Please take a look at Swiggy or Zomato.

So, going by that logic, since you can order from Amazon with any address, so Amazon delivery in America without addresses too

> They manage to deliver in rural India where there are no proper addresses and infrastructure.

'They' here means the transportation, not the marketplace. It comes down to the transportation to make sense of improper addresses and provide wide coverage.

Also, Ekart has a very limited serviceability and flipkart has to rely on third party logistics.

Serious question: what do you consider "any other enterprise" in this context?

Because the obvious comparison would be Amazon, Walmart's chief competitor, and I don't know how they could match that seeing how they don't have anywhere near the kind of expertise, experience, and investment that Amazon had for over two decades.

To me, it actually makes perfect sense for them to buy an Indian firm to become their tech lab. They don't have the knowledge or resources to even enter the field to compete for talent to build up their tech in the US - let alone win it.

FactorDaily is well-known for its click-baity headlines. They published an article about India's Shakti processor being an "ARM-killer" and the lead architect had to clarify this on HN itself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15685019

This is 11 months old and according to what i see, factordaily has a lot of articles.

So, i'm not sure if one example can be generalized. Untill then, they keep in my rss list though :)

Their content is often excellent. It's just that they often go overboard with their headlines. Have heard this complaint multiple times in my network.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com