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Flipkart Success Story
E-commerce (Electronic Commerce) is the use of platforms that make it easier to buy and sell products over through the internet. Executing business transactions requires exchanging digital funds and data.
Although online shopping platforms such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Alibaba are the most well-known examples of e-commerce, the term also refers to other kinds of digital activities such as online auctions, online ticketing, and payment gateways.
Don’t you think online buying and selling have become an essential part of our lives? It was youth and adults who initially relied on the internet to buy products at affordable prices with amazing return policies and guarantees, it was a trend back then.
Nowadays, eCommerce websites have made online shopping a common practice for people of all ages. Flipkart is India's most popular eCommerce website, known for its innovative business model.
Flipkart is the leading Indian eCommerce website founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007.
The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, India.
This Indian eCommerce store has brought a revolution in the Indian e-retail industry.
Let's now delve into the success story of Flipkart and learn about its founders, subsidiaries, parent organization, tagline, and more.
Flipkart - Company Highlights
- Startup Name- Flipkart
- Headquarter- Bengaluru, India
- Sector- E-commerce
- Founders- Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal
- Founded- 2007
- CEO- Kalyan Krishnamurthy
- Total Funding- $12.6+ billion (January 2022)
- Revenue- $5.83+ billion
- Valuation- $37.6+ billion
- Area Served- India
- Parent Organization- Walmart
- Website- flipkart.com
Flipkart, an Indian eCommerce company founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, has become a household name. Based in Bengaluru, India, Flipkart has been selling a vast range of products online, similar to Amazon.
Its phenomenal marketing strategies has attracted the attention of retail giant Walmart, which acquired Flipkart for $16 billion in May 2018.
Along with the imposing worldwide market share that Walmart has in the retail industry, the Sam Walton-founded company is also famous for its inspirational business model.
In the initial years, Flipkart focused on selling books but today the catalogue covers categories like electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products. More than 1 billion people have shopped using Flipkart, making the e-commerce giant the leading e-retailer in India.
Flipkart also has subsidiaries like Myntra, PhonePe, eBay, Ekart, Jeeves, and Jabong. Flipkart also launched Shopsy on July 2, 2021, which is designed to behave like an app that will encourage the nation's entrepreneurs to reap all the benefits of digital eCommerce that comes their way without investments.
Today, Flipkart has over 100 million registered users, 100+ thousand sellers, and 21+ state-of-the-art warehouses.
It also boasts about 10+ million daily page visits and over 8 million shipments/month. Flipkart currently works as a subsidiary of Walmart.
The current CEO of Flipkart Group is Kalyan Krishnamurthy.
Flipkart acquired a 100% stake in Walmart India, which operates the Best Price cash-and-carry business.
Thus, launching Flipkart Wholesale. This step helped Flipkart strengthen its hold on Grocery/food and Fashion Business, which is stated to be highly competitive in this dynamic environment.
The launch of Flipkart Wholesale will be initiated in August, thus piloting the services for the Grocery and Fashion categories.
The role of Kirana Stores and MSMEs in India's retail ecosystem is vital. With a focus on meeting their needs, Flipkart Wholesale is all set to widen up opportunities at a significant value. By leveraging the expertise and knowledge, the team is breaking new norms and helping Indian Businesses to grow and succeed.
Earlier in 2018, Flipkart was acquired by Walmart for $16 Billion, which was the largest online e-commerce acquisition in the world to the present. Flipkart launched its wholesale unit with a presence in fashion and grocery categories.
“With the launch of Flipkart Wholesale, we will now extend our capabilities across technology, logistics and finance to small businesses across the country,” Said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group
At present, Flipkart Wholesale will be headed by Adarsh Menon (a veteran at Flipkart). In order to ensure smooth functioning and transition, Sameer Aggarwal (CEO, Walmart India) will remain with the company for a while.
Flipkart - Industry and Target Market Size
Flipkart uses an undifferentiated targeting strategy, since people of all demography purchase items online which is available to everyone where delivery is possible.
National & Multinational ECommerce companies are giving neck-to-neck competition to each other, due to which their positioning is very important. Flipkart has positioned itself as a trustworthy and customer-friendly ECommerce brand.
The online retail industry market is of a size of around $60 billion. It is expected to reach $200 billion by the year 2026. The Indian and global e-commerce industry is on the verge of exponential growth, and the introduction of high-speed internet has fueled the process across the nation.
Before the pandemic, India was one of the most attractive eCommerce markets globally, expected to deliver a 30% CAGR over a six-year time horizon, according to a report by RedSeer Consulting that projected the sector to record $160 billion in gross merchandise values (GMV) by 2022.
Flipkart - Founders and Team
Founder Education
Sachin Bansal
Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi)
Binny Bansal
Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi)
Flipkart was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in May 2007.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy
is the CEO of the company, who was appointed as the CEO of the company in January 2017, when he replaced Binny Bansal.
About Sachin Bansal- Co-founder of Flipkart
Sachin Bansal is the co-founder of Flipkart. After obtaining a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, Sachin started with Amazon as a Senior Software Engineer after a brief stint at Techspan. He then left his job at Amazon and co-founded Flipkart.
In Flipkart, he managed the positions of CEO and Chairman before resigning in 2018 following Walmart's major acquisition of Flipkart, where the American multinational company acquired around 77% stakes in the Indian eCommerce company. Bansal eventually started Navi with Ankit Agarwal and is currently serving as a Chairman at Navi. The net worth of Sachin Bansal is currently at $1.30 billion, as of the Forbes report of 2022.
About Binny Bansal- Co-founder of Flipkart
An IIT Delhi alumnus, much like Sachin, Binny completed his Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering, after which he co-founded Flipkart. Binny Bansal was the COO and the CEO of Flipkart.
Sachin was the CEO since the inception of Flipkart and in 2016, Binny Bansal took over as the CEO while Sachin Bansal became the executive chairman of the company. However, Binny also resigned from Flipkart in 2018 due to personal misconduct allegations of Flipkart.
Bansal also served as the Group CEO of the organization. Moreover, Binny has also served as a Board Advisor at Acko, Blackbuck, GreyOrange, Udhyam Learning, and more such companies. Binny Bansal is currently serving as a Co-founder and Executive Chairman at xto10x Technologies.
The net worth of Binny Bansal is also $1.30 bn, as reported by Forbes in 2022. Apart from serving in the Saas-consultancy startup, Bansal is also among the Board of Directors of PhonePe.
Binny Bansal sold stakes worth $264 Mn (nearly Rs 2,060 crore) to Tencent, as per official documents checked out on June 13, 2022.
The documents revealed that the transaction has already been done in October 2021, and was shared only at the start of FY22.
At the end of the transaction, Binny Bansal has now been holding around 1.84% of the stakes, while Tencent is currently holding 0.72% stakes. The Chinese tech giant is holding around 4-5% stakes in Flipkart Pte, which is the Singapore-based parent of Flipkart.
Binny Bansal has a history of selling stakes. He had previously sold stakes worth $90 mn in 2019 to Tiger Global across 2 deals. Bansal also sold shares worth $76 mn to FIT Holdings SARL, the Luxembourg entity that is owned and operated by Walmart, in the same year.
Flipkart's SVP - Growth and Monetisation and Shopsy Head, Prakash Sikaria is exiting after the festival sales, as per reports dated July 22, 2022. Sikaria also headed other verticals like ReCommerce and travel, which will now be taken over by Adarsh Menon.
On the other hand, Flipkart Wholesale, the B2B ecommerce business of Flipkart will be headed by Koteshwar LN. However, Flipkart is yet to decide the persons to appoint for the other functions that Sikaria handled.
Flipkart currently operates with an employee strength of 33,000+ employees.
Flipkart - Startup Story
The IIT- Delhi graduates, Sachin and Binny Bansal were employees at Amazon when they began thinking of building their own company in India.
Though Sachin was an employee working with Amazon for some time, Binny was referred to join the same by Sachin and the former appeared to be quite bored with the company.
It was like a "12 to 3 job or something" for Binny Bansal, who decided to quit the company as soon as Sachin and he emerged with the idea of establishing an eCommerce business.
Sachin and Binny started Flipkart as an online book store from a two-bedroom apartment in Bengaluru’s Kormangala area. They initially started with a funding of Rs 4,00,000 from their own pockets.
When Sachin and Binny received a positive response and success in selling books back in the year 2007, they planned to expand to electronics as well and by 2014, the company became one of India’s most valuable startups by reaching a valuation of $1 Billion.
When the duo founded Flipkart, online shopping in India was even a distant dream for them, but the hard work and consistency paid off and made Sachin and Binny into widely successful entrepreneurs that placed them quite ahead in the list of the successful Indian entrepreneurs.
Flipkart - Mission
Company - Flipkart
Mission To provide a delightful customer experience, by being the partner of choice for Indians and to create India's most customer-centric company
Flipkart means ‘flipping things into a shopping kart’.
The logo of Flipkart was changed twice. There have been several taglines that the company has gone through for different occasions. Some of the taglines are:
- Ab Har Wish Hogi Poori
- Abhi Nahi To Kabhi Nahi
- If it's trendy, its on Flipkart
- Be Trendy, Always
- Itne mein, Itnaaaa Milega
- Shopping ka naya address
- Ab Mehengaayi Giregi
Flipkart - Parent Organization
In August 2018, U.S.-based retail chain Walmart acquired a 77% controlling stake in Flipkart for US$16 billion, valuing the company at $20 billion.
With this acquisition, Walmart claimed that the omni-channel retail sector has a huge potential for future growth.
Speaking at Retail India Summit and Expo, Walmart India President and CEO Krish Iyer claimed that Owing to the demonetization, he said that it played a crucial role in the growth of the retail sector, by structuring the economy along with the implementation of the GST.
These stakes were further increased to 81.3% towards the end of the same year. Soon after the acquisition, one of the founders of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal left the company.
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores.
Flipkart - Products/Services
Flipkart is India's leading eCommerce marketplace with over 80 million products across 80+ categories.
Some of the products offered by Flipkart are electronics like laptops, tablets, smartphones, and mobile accessories to in-vogue fashion staples like shoes, clothing, and lifestyle accessories; from modern furniture like sofa sets, dining tables, and wardrobes to appliances that make your life easy like washing machines, TVs, ACs, mixer grinder juicers, and other time-saving kitchen and small appliances.
From home furnishings like cushion covers, mattresses, and bedsheets to toys and musical instruments, Flipkart got them all covered. You name it, and you can stay assured about finding them all here.
Flipkart - Subsidiaries
The subsidiaries of Flipkart are Myntra, PhonePe, Mallers, eBay, Ekart, Jeeves, Mech Mocha, Upstream Commerce, Ugenie, DSYN Technologies, AdIQuity Technologies, Jabong, ClearTrip, Shopsy, Yaantra, Liv.Ai, F1 Info Solutions and Services, Fx Mart, Appiterate, ngpay, Mime360, WeRead, Chakpak, and Sasta Sundar.
Flipkart - Business Model and Revenue Model
Flipkart works on a B2C business model i.e. Business to Consumer model. The company initially began with a direct consumer model wherein it sold books and some other products.
Today, it has become a marketplace with a huge catalogue of products—right from FMCG to electronics and books.
Flipkart claims it has over 80 categories and over a million sellers on board from all across India.
It is an omni-channel service provider, which leveraged the same model after the Walmart acquisition of Flipkart. The company earns almost all of its operating revenues from the sale of goods.
Flipkart - Partnerships
Flipkart has seen a wide range of partnerships throughout the years it has been active. Some of the most prominent of its partnerships are:
Flipkart started partnering with Authentic Brands to license and distribute Nautica in India in August 2019.
Flipkart started partnering with Authentic Brands to license and distribute Nautica in India in August 2019.
The Indian eCommerce marketplace announced a strategic and commercial partnership with the Adani Group on April 12, 2021, to enhance its supply chain and logistics infrastructure.
Flipkart partnered with Urbanic on September 8, 2021, to target young consumers across India.
Flipkart started collaborating with the leading Indian kids' fashion brand, Hopscotch to strengthen its kids' fashion segment.
The eCommerce major partnered with the Indian Institute of Management, Sambalpur, with an aim to support and promote small businesses.
The popular audio streaming service, Pocket FM has partnered with Flipkart on July 26, 2022, which will be a tie-up for its distribution via the famous ecommerce marketplace.
Flipkart Partnership with Adani
Flipkart is looking to partner with Adani Group, which would help the existing partnership venture into new areas like wholesale ecommerce, beyond the warehousing and data centres.
The partnership talks, which have been cited in the advanced stages, revealed that the upcoming partnership would see the ecommerce firm sell a range of Adani products that would work in a revenue-sharing agreement between the two.
This partnership can well be marked as an initiative that will strengthen Adani's presence in the eCommerce space. Flipkart and Adani had already partnered before in April.
It was a commercial partnership that helped Flipkart get logistics and warehousing support from the Adani Group.
Flipkart has raised a total of $12.6+ billion in funding over 26 rounds. The latest round Flipkart raised was brought $233 million for the company from its Singapore-based holding company.
The company mopped the funds before two of its major sales – Flipkart TV Days and Big Bachat Dhamal.
The eCommerce giant raised its previous funding of $3.6 Billion on July 12, 2021, from a Corporate Round round led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Walmart, and other investors.
Flipkart started with an initial capital of $6000 in the year 2007. In 2008, Accel India, a venture capital firm, provided funding of $1 million.
By the year 2012, Flipkart became a unicorn startup and South African Tec Major Naspers announced further funding of $150 million.
After Flipkart acquired Myntra in the year 2014, it was able to raise a funding of $210 million from DST Global.
As of May 2015, Flipkart had raised $550 million from some of its existing investors, in a deal that raised its total valuation to $15 billion.
In April 2017, Flipkart underwent another round of funding, with $1.4 billion at a valuation of $11.6 billion, including eBay, Microsoft, and Tencent.
In August 2018, US-based retail chain Walmart acquired a 77% controlling stake in Flipkart for US$16
This was further increased to 81.3% in November of the same year. The acquisition was completed on 18 August 2018. Walmart also provided US$2 billion in equity funding to the company.
Flipkart raised around $3.6 billion on July 12, 2021, from a round led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Walmart, and others in what is deemed to be one of the biggest financing rounds in the history of consumer tech businesses in India.
With this recent addition, Flipkart is looking to invest in people, and technology, improve the supply chain, develop its infrastructure, digitize grocery stores, and further add to it.
Furthermore, this infusion also marked the return of SoftBank, which took its exit in 2018, when Walmart bought the company.
Softbank is also in talks with the Bangalore-based company to pump in around $300-500 million in the upcoming months.
Flipkart was last valued at $37.6 billion on July 12, 2021, and was preparing for its upcoming public listing. The most popular ecommerce company raised its target for IPO valuation, as per the reports dated April 8, 2022.
The company has reportedly raised its IPO valuation to $60-$70 bn and is eyeing a listing on the US bourses in 2023 instead of 2022, according to Reuters news.
Flipkart - ESOPs
Flipkart Singapore has expanded its ESOP trust. According to the reports dated March 31, 2022, the company has allotted 21,370 equity shares, the total worth of which is reported to be around $4.4 million (Rs 30.71 crore) to the ESOP trust.
The Indian ecommerce giant already boasts of having the largest ESOP pool among the startups of Indian origin.
A recent Longhouse Consulting report claims that Flipkart's ESOP pool is worth around $2.26 billion (Rs 17,000 crore), while other companies like OYO, Zomato, Paytm, Nykaa, and Byju's have created $1 billion, $750 million, $610 million, $570 million and $412 million worth of ESOP pools to date.
Flipkart - Growth and Revenues
From its bootstrapped beginnings to the success Flipkart is witnessing today proudly talks about its success.
Though the company looked a bit shaky with the arrival of US-based Amazon in the Indian markets the danger is no more looming today with the assertion of Kalyan Krishnamurthy as the Group CEO and the acquisition of Walmart of Flipkart.
Flipkart India is currently leading the eCommerce site in India.
The Walmart-owned Indian eCommerce company has also clocked an impressive 64% market share when last recorded during the festive sales in October 2021.
Flipkart Foray into NFTs with Nothing's Airdrops
As soon as Nothing, a UK-based company announced its Nothing Phone 1, Flipkart was quick to decide that it would be allowing the buyers of Nothing 1, who can also be acquire Nothing's limited edition non-fungible tokens (NFTs) via its mobile shopping app.
Soon after launching the Nothing phone, the company launched its NFT collection called Nothing Community Dots, and will be using the Polygon blockchain to host it, as per reports dated July 15, 2022.
For all the users who have pre-booked and will be going to purchase the all-new Nothing smartphone would be able to redeem the NFTs with the help of the Firedrops feature of Flipkart. This marks the Walmart-owned company's foray into the Web3 and NFT ecosystem.
Flipkart Plans to Foray into At-Home Services
Flipkart is nourishing its plans to set out to conquer the at-home services space to rival the Abhiraj Bahl-led company Urban Company, as of May 24, 2022. The Walmart-backed ecommerce giant has already started offering AC cleaning and repairing services, and will further be extending washing machine repairs and other similar offerings too soon.
These services were earlier extended only to the consumers who bought specific products from Flipkart. Jeeves Consumer Services, a brand that Flipkart acquired between 2014-2015, would be behind the on-demand services, as per the latest reports.
The AC cleaning services of Flipkart are currently available in Bengaluru and Kolkata and can be booked quite in a similar fashion as they order products from Flipkart. Once it is booked, the technician will then schedule an appointment with the customer. In the cleaning services product description, Flipkart has mentioned that the SOPs and other charges would be levied by the consumers.
Flipkart Labs
Flipkart Labs is one of the latest initiatives launched by Flipkart on April 28, 2022, with a view of foraying into Web3 and Metaverse. Based in Bengaluru, Flipkart Labs aims to build an in-house innovation capability to fuel and shape the future of customer-centric e-commerce in India.
The Flipkart Labs by Flipkart will test the use cases of the novel Web 3.0 and that of Metaverse, like NFTs, virtual storefronts, play-to-earn, and other blockchain technologies. The pilot of Flipkart's foray into the NFT and Web3 ecosystem has already begun with the Firedrops feature.
Flipkart Health+ App
Flipkart launched its new Health+ App, which will focus on empowering the users with easy access to medicines, healthcare products, and services across India on April 6, 2022.
This new Flipkart app will be serving customers from across 20,000+ pin codes and extend quality and affordable medicines and healthcare products that will be accessible easily for the customers from different independent sellers across the country. The company is currently aiming to form a network of 500+ independent sellers.
Flipkart Grocery
Flipkart popularly makes groceries easily accessible for its users. The ecommerce marketplace further announced the expansion of its grocery arm to 1800 cities across the country.
With this impetus, Flipkart Grocery aimed to deliver in 23 states and across 10,000 pin codes, as per the reports dated January 24, 2022. The first priority would be extending its services across the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India.
Flipkart's 2GUD.com
In 2018, Flipkart acquired the India operations of eBay, among various investments that it made. Although, as a part of the memorandum of understanding between Flipkart and eBay, Flipkart has decided to shut down India’s first international e-commerce portal for a brand-new replacement by its 2GUD flagship for endless refurbished shopping, Flipkart’s brand new platform for a trade of refurbished goods, is now on the mobile web.
All about Refurbished Market 2Gud.com
Flipkart has been working to make a refurbished market to ease shopping for a long time. Globally, the online second-hand goods market(refurbished market) is flourishing. Based on the learnings from eBay, Flipkart has decided to launch a refurbished market, and this was announced by CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy in August 2018.
A previously unorganized sector has another giant’s participation, 2GUD, whose operations would be completely distinct and separate from Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based Flipkart would make thorough tests on original products, and offer certified warranty varying from 3-12 months on its refurbished market platform.
2GUD Homepage
The products sold would be serviced through a well-sorted service network throughout the country. Initially, the eye candy of Flipkart’s 2Gud would be seen in the refurbished mobile phones, laptop computers, and tablets, which would soon also include home appliances and other goods in its refurbished market called 2Gud. In a statement issued by the CEO, this market is aimed at “value buyers” who are looking for refurbished goods.
2Gud RoadMap for Refurbished Products
Flipkart-owned 2Gud for the refurbished market will play a major in driving budget shoppers to premium products. Although, with its great accreditation for shopping experience refurbished market will gain trust quickly among the budget buyers and refurbished sellers.
Moreover, Flipkart will also keep a strict quality check on refurbished items so that the buyers use their products hassle-free.
However, its 10-day easy return policy will be super beneficial for the refurbished shopping market. Initially, 2Gud started the refurbished market with Mobiles, Laptops, Tablets, Smart Watches, and Accessories and plan to introduce 40+ categories in the giant refurbished market “2Gud”.
2GUD has expanded its category offerings to cater to style-conscious Indians who are looking for value IN 2019. Targeted at Tier II and Tier III markets, 2GUD plans to evolve from a refurbished-only platform to a complete customer offering with categories such as affordable fashion, accessories, and home.
As part of a larger strategy to expand the benefits of e-commerce to the next 200 million customers, 2GUD, which is present across 40+ categories, will now expand to 150+ categories. 2GUD is focusing on making the latest trends across fashion, home, decor, kids and other categories affordable for the Indian consumer.
2GUD predicts that the refurbished goods market, on gaining the trust of users, would go on to become a 20 billion dollar industry in the next half-decade. To be a leader in this segment of e-commerce in India is not an easy task, given the “trust issues” that continue to persist in this part of the pie.
Recently, 2GUD upgraded its m-site, making it available as a mobile app as it looks to cater to a larger set of audiences and shoppers. 2GUD has served close to a million customers from over 3,000 cities across India and has over 1,000 registered sellers.
Officially, eBay.in ended operations on the 14th of August 2018. In the meantime, eBay is all set to relaunch its platform with cross-border trade offers exclusively. The Walmart-owned-Flipkart has enormous growth prospects and has been doing great in its own way.
Flipkart's EKart
Ekart logistics of Flipkart fame has announced that it will now extend its services to big and small brands across India, as per the reports dated April 29. 2022. Ekart's operations, which were earlier limited to the Flipkart requirements will now offer end-to-end supply chain management solutions, which will include dropship, inventory management, distribution, and aggregation. The logistics arm of Flipkart will extend all of these services to brands, platforms, and businesses.
Flipkart's Jeeves
Jeeves if the services arm of Flipkart, which has also been pretty much limited to Flipkart's own service requirements, will also have a go at the end-to-end solutions including installation, demo, and repair services for the needs of brands after their sales, mentioned an April 29th, 2022 report.
Flipkart - Big Billion Sale Success
The delivery of around 1 crore shipments within 5 days of the Big Billion Day sale has created a lasting mark on the eCommerce industry. Flipkart has seen a 10X growth from the last festive Big Billion sale. Out of the 1 crore, around 35 lakh deliveries were via Kirana Partners.
The number of crorepati sellers went up by 1.5 times and the number of lakhpati sellers had a 1.7 times rise.
In the Big Billion Days' sale of 2021, over 3.75 lakh sellers joined hands to offer the best of products online to their customers via Flipkart. This helped the customers save a whopping Rs 11500 crore during the “biggest Indian sale ever. The platform witnessed around 110 orders placed per second that varied across various products including electronics, fashion, books, furnishing, etc, in its Big Billion sale of 2020.
Flipkart Financials
Both Flipkart India and Flipkart Internet posted growths of 25% and 32% in revenue from operations in FY21. The revenues of Flipkart Internet were reported to be Rs 7840 crores but its losses also increased by 49% to Rs 2881 crore. On the other hand, Flipkart India also witnessed a 25% increase in its revenue from operations, which is currently reported to be Rs 42941.7 crore in FY21 from Rs 34170.5 crore of revenue it managed to obtain in FY20, while its losses declined by 22% to Rs 2445 crore.
The eCommerce leader has managed to reduce its losses to INR 2,445.6 Cr, which is by 22% in FY21, from INR 3,150 Cr in FY20.
The company started a unique feature of value preposition by offering 24 x 7 support to the customer. Flipkart charges a certain amount or percentage of commission from the sellers, which varies depending on the type of product and the kind of sales. This may range from 5% to 20% excluding the taxes and discounts.
Flipkart announced the launch of 'Flipkart Xtra' on September 22, 2021, which will serve as a new marketplace for the company that will onboard several part-time delivery partners from across the country.
Furthermore, it will also help in offering flexible earning opportunities to individuals, service agencies, and technicians. Besides, this new marketplace is also designed to support Flipkart's supply chain to ensure faster and seamless delivery of products to Indian customers.
The new ‘Flipkart Xtra’ app will allow the delivery partners of the company to sign up from anywhere along with offering them the flexibility of choosing their preferred schedule to deliver shipments.
Launched in July 2021, the Shopsy app of Flipkart has only passed 100 days of its launch but claims to have garnered over 2.5 Lakh sellers and 51 Lakh users and is basking in its own success, as of October 9, 2021.
The social commerce venture of Flipkart has witnessed 35x growth of the pre-festive daily average, in the ongoing festive sale, as per 9th October 2021's reports. Shopsy witnessed 35x growth of the pre-festive daily average.
Furthermore, the company is also seeing around a 100x week-on-week growth on its social commerce model, which helps in assisted shopping, and charges commission from advertisements and sellers working through its platform. This is why the company is striving to get a bigger share of the grocery ecosystem in the upcoming months.
Here are some growth highlights of the brand at a glance:
- Flipkart is a market leader.
- It is one of the pioneering eCommerce marketplaces in the country.
- Flipkart is known as the highest valued among the unicorn companies in India.
- Flipkart presently boasts of having more than 375K sellers/resellers.
- The company is currently serving 150 million+ users in the country.
- Flipkart - Investments
- Being a pioneering ecommerce business, which is hailed as a fast-growing company, Flipkart has seen numerous investments. Flipkart made a total of 28 investments to date out of which there are 26 lead investments.
- The latest investment was worth $553.2 mn, which the company infused into its Marketplace business, which came in on March 31, 2022.
Flipkart - Mergers and Acquisitions
Flipkart has acquired 18 companies to date, as of March 2022. ANS Commerce was the latest company that Flipkart acquired in an undisclosed deal on April 19, 2022, in order to strengthen its eCommerce ecosystem.
As per the deal, ANS Commerce would be continuing as a separate eCommerce solutions platform working under the leadership of Flipkart. Flipkart previously acquired the repair and refurbishing startup Yaantra on January 13, 2022, in a deal worth $40 million.
Noida-based Yaantra has already proven expertise in product assessment and refurbishment and will be aiding to boost the eCommerce giant's business, thereby strengthening the after-sales offerings of the customers in the smartphones segment.
The company had acquired numerous companies among which the acquisition of a 100% stake in Walmart India in July 2020 and Upstream Commerce on Sep 9, 2018, are memorable along with its other acquisitions of Myntra, which it acquired in 2014, in a deal worth $300 million; Jabong, which it acquired for $70 million in 2016 and that of PhonePe.
In April 2017, eBay announced that it would sell its Indian subsidiary eBay.in to Flipkart and make a US$500 million cash investment in the company. Flipkart has also acquired gaming startup Mech Mocha after being its seed investor earlier.
The deal has been sealed in November 2020, for an undisclosed amount, where the Walmart-owned ecommerce giant had acquired the intellectual property of Mech Mocha, which owns the country's first live social gaming platform, "Hello Play" in order to strengthen the gaming strategy of Flipkart.
Flipkart had also taken over 10 games that Mech Mocha developed over the past five years, including Ludo, Carrom, Snakes and Ladders, and Cricket.
