Operations
Ishaan Sharma NMiMS, Hyderabad Batch: 2012-2014 STORY OF THE KART FLIPKART
INTRODUCTION Gone are the days when we used to stand in a queue with baskets in hand, waiting for the public to clear the counters. It’s the age of computers and the worldwide web and…. with that comes ‘the breaking dawn–rise of E-COMMERCE’. In today’s time customer wants the best of the products delivered at his/her doorsteps, that too in no time. In India there are more than 9 million internet users, in last one decade many e-portals have opened up to tap on this market opportunity. Flipkart is one of the many portals that started to cater to the rapidly growing online market and changed the whole online market scenario in just a time span of 5 years. THE BEGINNING The journey began in 2007 when Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal-both from IIT DELHI gaining prior experience in Amazon- started a web portal that was meant to compare different websites. As there were not enough websites to be compared in the first place, Bansals thought of starting an online bookstore and later expanded into electronics and other consumer durables. The idea of selling books online wasn’t new. There were already established players in the market like Indiamart, Indiaplaza,rediff, indiatimes shopping,etc but the key element of Flipkart’s success was its supply chain efficiencies and their marketing strategy. Today, Flipkart is into more than 14 different product categories and continuing on expansion plan, it added an online multilingual music store-FLYTE and a toy section to its basket. Currently, Flipkart employs more than 4500 people.
THE JOURNEY SO FAR… Flipkart started its operations from Bangalore, with an investment of approximate four lakh INR; the company reached its breakeven point in 2008. Ever since the company has raised funds from venture capital firm, ACCEL PARTNERSdollar one million in 2009 and private equity player TIGER GLOBAL MANAGEMENT – dollar ten million in 2010 and dollar twenty million in 2011.
ACQUISITONS •2010- WeRead, a social book discovery tool. •2011- Mime360, a digital content platform company. •2011- Acquired rights to digital catalogues-filmography, movies and ratings of Chakpak.com •2012- Bought Letsbuy.com- India’s second largest electronics e-retailer for US$ 25 million BUSINESS RESULTS 1. SALES in FY 2008-09 - 40 million rupees. 2. SALES in FY 2009-10 - 200 million rupees. 3. SALES in FY 2010-11 - 750 million rupees.
Source: The Hindu
With the website clocking more than 20 products per minute, flipkart is the largest book retailer with more than 11.5 million books in its stocks. It occupies almost eighty percent of the marketshare . According to the CEO , Flipkart clocks a daily sale of Rs2.5 crores. The r evenues have grown tremendously over the years with portal clocking approximately rupees 500 crores and it is
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iNM - Magazine Vol. 4