ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

FILPKART’S EPIC FLASH

Dr. Inderpal Singh Parveen Singh Kalsi Arminder Jit Singh Rai Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, KCL Institute of Management & KCL Institute of Management & KCL Institute of Management & Technology, Jalandhar Technology, Jalandhar Technology, Jalandhar

On 6th Oct 2014 Sachin Bansal to Binny Bansal “It's a historic day for online shopping. We have set a lot of records in terms of sales, traffic and deals. We were targeting sales of about $100 million in 24 hours but did that within 10 hours. We had a billion hits on the website and on our mobile application, which means we exceeded Facebook in terms of website usage and WhatsApp in mobile app usage.”

Flipkart’s Business Progression organization money and power to negotiate with prominent manufacturers like Motorola Both, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal being to offer deals which envisioned computer science graduates from IIT-Delhi were suitable for their success in the Indian from the 2005 batch worked at but Market. These endeavours of the company felt the need for a good online book store, helped them to beat its competitors to thus started flipkart.com in September’ become the largest player in the Indian e- 2007. It took them about a month and a half commerce market. to start the basic working website with 50,000 titles which now have been grown to Flipkart currently has an employee base of over 1 Lakh available titles. Both, Sachin 10,000, over 18 million registered users, and Bansal and Binny Bansal manages a small daily site traffic of around 3.5 million. team which manages the back-end According to the filing by the company with operations. Adding fuel to their organic the Registrar of Companies, Flipkart India growth, Flipkart then acquired Myntra1 (The Pvt. Ltd, the wholesale business of Flipkart, online lifestyle e-retailer) and expanded in reported a loss of Rs 281.7 crore in the year the clothing and fashion segment which was ended March 2013 compared with Rs 109.9 not Flipkart’s forte earlier. After acquiring crore in the previous year. During the same fashion e-retailer Myntra for an estimated period revenue jumped fivefold to more than price of over $330 million, Flipkart then Rs 1,180 crore from Rs 204.8 crore in the received funding worth $210 million from previous year. Further, according to Binny DST Global2. The funding gave the Bansal, co-founder and COO, “Flipkart ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… has changed the way people shop in India Amazon and Snapdeal. The trio achieved now. Today, we are the first choice in online sales worth $4 billion in 2014, where shopping for millions of customers across Flipkart alone accounting for almost half the length and breadth of the country. We that amount. met our GMV3 run rate of $1 billion, a year before target, reinforcing our leadership Present status of Asian-Pacific E- position.” Certainly with so much happening Commerce Industry on positive side “we can see that Flipkart ke Aache Din aa Gaye Hain”. India and China are the most rapidly expanding countries in the Asia-Pacific Indian E-Commerce Industry region, which accounted for nearly 35% of E-commerce industry, which started the total B2C online sales in 2014, as per 4 flourishing in India nearly ten years back figures released by eMarketer . This was the with eBay acquiring Avnish Bajaj owned first time when Asia-Pacific surpassed US Baazee.com, an online auction portal, has as the online buyers in the Asia Pacific will come a long way indeed. At present, E- spend more on online sales than their commerce is one of the fastest growing counterparts in North America. sectors of the Indian digital economy. As, Indian leading Venture Capital firm Accel ______Partners has released an in-depth study of 1 Myntra (www.myntra.com): Online store Indian ecommerce space, according to for branded shoes, clothing and accessories which Indian ecommerce will quadruple for both men and women. from a $2 billion Industry in 2013 to nearly 2 DST Global: Russian billionaire Yuri $8.5 Billion by 2016 at a CAGR of 63%. Milner’s fund DST Global pumps $210 Further, Gartner predicts a 70% growth rate million into Flipkart. Milner is a savvy and for the sector and expects $6 billion worth of prominent investor, in the tear 2009, he business in 2015. picked up a 1.96 percent stake in Facebook for $200 million, and his investment fund The e-commerce industry in the India which also has a stake in Groupon, Zynga, Spotify grew by 33% last year and saw goods and and Airbnb. Web reference extracted from: services worth $3.5 billion exchanging http://forbesindia.com/article/special/dst- hands is poised for bigger growth and touch global-pumps-$210-million-into- new highs; have been driven by the three flipkart/37870/1 biggest e-commerce players: Flipkart, ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

India, sitting at the top of the list along with increases; and with a greater percentage of China and Indonesia, augurs well for online new e-commerce users from Tier II and Tier sellers in India. III cities in India.

“Digital commerce is at a nascent stage in Growth Drivers & Future Prospects of India, however India is one of the fastest- Indian E-Commerce Industry growing e-Commerce markets in Asia- Pacific”, said Praveen Sengar5. “India Subsequently, with a steep rise in the represents a $3.5 billion market, growing at number of Indian smartphone users, as a approximately 60-70 percent every year. It result of which 5% transactions are carried represents less than 4 percent of the total out through mobiles and tablet devices. retail market. B2C e-Commerce leads the Increased use of plastic money both debit & market in India, while B2B is limited to credit cards; further cash on delivery will organizations that drive online channels to remain the most popular method for integrate with their partners and payment, however, it will come down from distributors.” 60 percent in 2013 to 50 percent in 2016.

Flipkart co-founder and CEO Sachin ______Bansal hopes Indian e-commerce sales to be 3 approximately $50-70 billion by 2020 with GMV: Gross merchandise volume is a the support of a fast growing internet- term used in online retailing to indicate a connected population and improvement in total sales dollar value for merchandise sold related infrastructure like payment and through a particular marketplace over a delivery systems. Changing mindset of certain time frame. This term is commonly buyers, increased dependence on smart used place of sales or revenue. Web phones and rapid penetration of the internet, reference extracted from according to him, hold the key to the growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_merchan of this sector; and Flipkart, to be a $20 dise_volume 4 billion company by 2020. eMarketer: eMarketer is the industry’s leading research firm, providing data, India is ranked at number three in the world insights and perspectives for marketing in going by the number of internet users, with digital world. Reference taken from only China and US ahead of us. As, more http://www.emarketer.com/ and more people get access to the internet, 5Praveen Sengar is the Research Director at e-commerce sector’s comprehensiveness Gartner ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Getting the digital marketing strategy right, and most importantly exquisite customer and investing in technology, people and service, all preceded by regulated e- process heighten involvement with the commerce policies. public and winning them over will determine the future of E-Commerce in Big Billion Day: Wise or Otherwise India. Accel Partners6 expects 300 million users to have internet access by 2015, and Flipkart’s founder in its statement expressed none could be happier with the rapidly that “The Big Billion Day is an growing internet user base than the e- unprecedented day for us as this is the retailers. According to Accel Report, in biggest sale ever in India. We are delighted 2012, the average physical goods by the overwhelming response from our ecommerce order value was Rs. 1080, which customers. With a range of exciting offers increased to Rs. 1860 in 2013. By 2016, it is on quality products at disruptive prices expected to nearly double to Rs. 3,600. By available throughout the sale period, we 2016, half of all online shoppers will be have created history in Indian e-commerce”. from Generation Y7 category. The orders per Further, Sachin Bansal also expressed that buyer per month will grow from 1.55 in “It's a historic day for online shopping. 2013 to 1.70 in 2016 and the number of orders per customer per year will grow from 3.2 percent in 2013 to 3.55 percent in 2016. ______Moreover, according to Nomura’s8 Internet India Report of July’ 2014 the India E- 6 Accel Partners is a venture and growth Commerce market is estimated to reach $45 equity firm. Accel funds companies from billion in next five years. Most of the inception through the growth stage. The players in the industry are focused on more company manages over $8.8 billion from growth than profitability. offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, India and China (through a Thus, the big e-retailers who can and will be partnership with IDG-Accel). Web reference able to spend on digital marketing, extracted from http://en.wikipedia.Org personalization, web analytics and follow /wiki/Accel_Partners the buyer pulse will eventually rule the 7 Generation Y category relate to individual competition. They must adopt the right or potential consumer having age between business strategy, intelligent use of 19-24 years. technology, adequate inventory & logistics 8 Nomura is a global research think tank ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We have set a lot of records in terms of huge demand and services were disrupted sales, traffic and deals. We were targeting for a short while because of unexpected sales of about $100 million in 24 hours but condition that prevented it from fulfilling the did that within 10 hours. We had a billion request by the client. hits on the website and on our mobile Almost 1.5 million shoppers bought goods application, which means we exceeded such as phones, clothes and accessories Facebook in terms of website usage and worth over $100 million from Flipkart on WhatsApp in mobile app usage.” the Big Billion Day sale on 6th October’ Flipkart would have spent huge amount on 2014. Thus, Flipkart paved its way to the advertising for the epic flash day and to bank with Rs. 600 crore worth of sales, but execute their mega epic flash perfectly, customer rage was also high enough to Flipkart took the services of a Managed IT prompt Flipkart to issue an apology mail. hosting services partner with provided features such as dedicated servers with Further, Flipkart’s epic flash lead to a firewall & switches, VPAT services, high whooping 15x growth for Snapdeal in the available infra with 99.99% uptime, scalable traffic during the same day, where they have IT infrastructure and 24x7x365 NMS & sold a smartphone every 6 seconds, a laptop support every 20 seconds and a tablet every 30 seconds”. Same is the story for others e- As, the mega sale started at 8 am and within retailers, as Flipkart end-up driving minutes most of the attractive deals where dissatisfied shoppers to rivals Amazon, out of stock. The e-commerce giant offered Snapdeal and eBay. Further, many visitors products in almost every categories at to Flipkart for that day complained about throwaway prices like a hand blender at Re prices being marked up before sale as 1 or a 2 TB portable hard drive at just Rs. several products were available at lesser 600. To make the sale even more irresistible, prices on rival websites like Snapdeal and customer could even avail an extra 10 per Amazon without any offer. It has been also cent discount by using a Citi bank or reported in the news that some offline Standard Chartered credit card to shop. retailers who wrote to Commerce Minister Customers who logged in after 10 am was Nirmala Sitharaman9 demanding e- desperately trying to figure out what exactly commerce be regulated. Recently Karnataka Flipkart was offering on its Big Billion Day Tax department issued a notice to Amazon as most products were sold out. Around and Flipkart for breaching e-retail policies. noon, Flipkart’s servers gave away to the ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal must by now have deliberated on these pertinent questions “Whether their epic flash was a wise decision? Whether Flipkart strategically planned for their epic sale? Whether this ambush marketing trick worked for Flipkart? Whether Flipkart gained customer confidence or eventually earned negative hype? Can Flipkart use loyalty programs to end-up the hopping spree of dis-satisfied shoppers to rivals? Whether Flipkart will be able to make this epic flash their yearly feature? If yes, then what capabilities are required to enable them to become more strategically competitive?

______

9 Nirmala Sitharaman is a Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Commerce & Industry, as well as a Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs which fall under the Ministry of Finance headed by Arun Jaitley. ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Electronic References: [6] http://www.startupdunia.com/intervi ew/interview-with-flipkart-founder- [1] http://indianexpress.com/article/tech binny-bansal-776 as retrieved on 14th nology/technology- February’ 2015 others/bigbillionday-gets-flipkart- [7] http://candytech.in/how-sachin- millions-of-unhappy-customers/ as bansal-and-binny-bansal-of-flipkart- th retrieved on 14 February’ 2015 made-a-fortune-by-revolutionizing- [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/201 online-retail/ as retrieved on 14th 41008085743-5582944-was-flipkart- February’ 2015 s-big-billion-day-sale-a-success-or- [8] http://articles.economictimes.indiati failure as retrieved on 14th February’ mes.com/2014-03- 2015 10/news/48083953_1_sachin-bansal- [3] http://www.thehindu.com/business/I flipkart-amod-malviya as retrieved ndustry/flipkart- on 14th February’ 2015 sale/article6475808.ece as retrieved [9] Business Standard (Electronic on 14th February’ 2015 Newspaper) of 14th February’ 2015 [4] http://articles.economictimes.indiati (Saturday) mes.com/2014-10- [10] http://articles.economictimes.indiat 09/news/54827462_1_snapdeal-and- imes.com/2015-01- amazon-flipkart-s-big-billion as 31/news/58650592 _1_big-billion- retrieved on 14th February’ 2015 day-billion-day-sachin-bansal as [5] http://www.business- retrieved on 26th February’ 2015 standard.com/article/companies/we- [11] http://tech.firstpost.com/news- are-getting-closer-to-real-time- analysis/flipkart-gearing-another- shopping-sachin-bansal- big-billion-day-sale-promises-much- 115020200037_1.html as retrieved bigger-better-experience- on 14th February’ 2015 252415.html as retrieved on 26th February’ ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Annexure – I

Indian Online Shoppers

Calendar Year Online Shoppers 2013 20 M 2016P 40 M

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND RETAIL MANAGEMENT

ISSN 0976-7193 (Print) ISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn.2349-2317/2014 Volume 6 Issue 2 (2015)

www.elkjournals.com ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Annexure-II