Flipkart Raises $160M From Dragoneer Investment, Morgan Stanley Investment
medianama.com
medianama.com
1.) Flipkart in India is about access, not just convenience. Even with large bookstores like Landmark, Crossword, etc. all over the city, not every book s available all the time. Say I want to buy a Swiss army knife from a small city - Flipkart is where I go!
2.) The ₹500 minimum order requirement is a bit of a pain. But Flipkart usually still works out cheaper. Firstly, not many things apart from books would be available for less than 500. And books on Flipkart are massively discounted. I bought a book last week for ₹450, with a markup of ₹795. I gladly paid the shipping and got it next day morning!
Anybody who is complaining about Flipkart should really try it. One day free shipping halfway across the country is just crazy! No other e-com site does that. Amazon doesn't provide that fast shipping for free either! And most other e-com sites in the country are only about Fashion and Clothing, while Amazon India is just a better looking ebay.
Ultimately, Indian consumer is winning !
Either way, the biggest benefits that used to exist with Flipkart are gone. They no longer ship free for purchases less than 500 rupees, so spending an extra 50 when you can drive down to the nearest bookstore makes no sense. They have also become famous when it comes to cancelling orders the very next day you ordered, if the price of the goods you ordered went up.
In fact I guess Flipkart is now large transforming itself into an ebay kind of site, I guess that's the way they will eventually go.
Free shipping for less than Rs 500 is an unreasonable expectation. It will cost more than 50 bucks (and a lot of time) to drive down given petrol prices. Finally, the nearest book store may not be stocking what you need.
Eventually, Flipkart will become an Amazon. They seem to be following the exact same path.
I don't think the biggest benefit of Flipkart was free shipping. And they have grown far beyond books. Amongst the e-commerce players in India, they are in the "better" category.
And spending for shipping will be non starter in India, people here bargain for a rupee or two for 1kg of potatoes with the local vegetable push cart vendor who comes right in front of your home to sell things. And we are expecting them to pay up 50 rupees for just showing up.
And its not just vegetable push cart vendors. You have clothes salesmen, pickle vendors, biscuit vendors and what not. Who just just go from street to street trying to sell stuff. Our people are culturally trained to forget giving them a extra shipping fee, but rather bargain for a lower price.
You are trying undo centuries of free shipping, and cash on delivery culture here.
Books work fine for e-commerce, because books are what they are. You read reviews on the internet and buy them, it doesn't matter what's inside as knowing that by reading is the whole point of the book. Its like a movie.
A mobile phone, tablet, laptop, clothes, glasses etc are totally different. I will never buy anything such, unless I see them or at least get a real feel of it. The Indian customers are very sensitive to this, try to convince an average Indian family to simply buy a thing online, without even seeing it once. Most won't, and for a good reason.
Exactly. they "helped". It's like you handout freebies when you launch a new product so that people can get a "taste" before they commit to buy the whole package. All these incentives are there to get people hooked on to buying online. There's nothing wrong with this approach.
You need to step out of that rock if you feel that Indians aren't buying online. Brick & Mortar mobile stores could be one of the earliest casualty of e-commerce.
I've been stung twice by inaccurate specs on their website before I decided to keep away permanently: 1. A phone which I kept. 2. An LCD which I returned.
... And they always err on the the side which makes the product look better.
They do not fix the descriptions of when complained about, and they delete reviews which point inaccuracies in the product description.
They're a terrible brand, and I hope they fail.
-- edit:
A couple of examples:
1. http://www.flipkart.com/dell-inspiron-14z-5423-ultrabook-2nd...
Dell Inspiration 14z "Ultrabook"... No SSD or msata.
2. http://www.flipkart.com/laptops/pr?p%5B%5D=facets.processor%...
Apple laptops are better than the others: 2nd generation Intel processor, but they have Intel HD Graphics 4000.
Don't get me wrong. A few typos are fine.
The problem is that with Flipkart this is normal and they don't clean it up.
Personally, I feel that the Indian customers expect a lot of free stuff which is sort of ridiculous. I mean you have a number of book stores, showrooms selling clothes, computers and loads of other things just next to your house, yet you wait for an order which might arrive after a week. It makes sense if you want to buy a coffee maker because that will come with free shipping and a reduced price, but please don't expect the same for small items.
What interests me more is the fact that Flipkart is already close to Amazon's marketplace at the moment and I am sure that it will continue to grow in that direction. What if Amazon acquires Flipkart at some point of time?
The fact is that we are upto cultural problems here.
>>but please don't expect the same for small items.
Again, which part of India do you live? Have you seen how vegetable push cart vendors, street salesmen or hawkers are treated. These people not just deliver a very low price stuff for free, but go further and have to face bargains for as little as 1 - 2 rupees.
The other sad news was the closure of their digital music store. Flipkart please take my money and give me back the music!