‘Kart'apulting into the future
Positive word-of-mouth gives Flipkart an edge on the customer side of the business. Backstage, the story's no different. Their recent acquisition of Letsbuy.com will result in a faster expansion rate. Binny's long-term outlook includes scaling up the firm's self-delivery network, and alliancing with like-minded businesses. “We are open to partnerships that'll help us attain our goals,” he signs off. Both the founders are happy to see increased venture capital participation in the e-commerce space, which, according to Sachin, “still needs lots of investment to bolster its back-end.”
Like a typical entrepreneur, he believes innovation is the key to the company's success. Extending services like cash-on-delivery and credit card payment at doorstep were introduced to provide ample choice and comfort to customers. Now, the attempt is to widen Flipkart's reach in the digital domain through Flyte, the portal's recently launched paid music download service. Customers can buy music in MP3 format from over 700 genres, and 55 languages. The files, which are digital rights management (DRM) free, can be played without any restrictions on any type of device and for an unlimited number of times.
Innovation is just one aspect of the business universe. Today, the premise of any business, traditional or modern, rests on its ability to harness data, which prompts the question, how does Flipkart utilize its data to generate consumer insights? Since the industry is still in infancy, there is no history one can to refer to. Gathering and analysing data, hence, becomes crucial for planning the business's future course of action. This practice, in a way, adds to the ‘surprise and delight' factor for customers, because they're then treated to offers that are most suited and relevant to their preferences. Sachin reiterates, “All our efforts are invested in matching customers' expectations, and we'll do our best to bring e-commerce into the forefront.”