Among the top three unicorns in India, Flipkart is one of them. It can be referred to as one of the most successful startups of India. It is an online E-commerce platform wherein the customers can buy and buyers can sell multiple products on the online platform. Flipkart was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and is a startup online company which is registered in Singapore and has its headquarters in Bangalore, India.
Initially, the company was started out as an online bookstore and through years, it has reached the equivalent position to Amazon in India with an array of around 20 million products across the range of more than seventy categories.
Flipkart Strategy:
Flipkart had spent years in raising money in form of million dollars and has now tapped into the expansion of the online market in India by targeting to obtain more investment. The company’s strategy is to raise as much as 1 billion US dollars to fund the various businesses and organizations in India. The main target of Flipkart is to take the top position in India by replacing Amazon as the leading E-commerce website and marketplace for the buyers and the sellers.
Flipkart Business Model:
The online platform of the Flipkart is a B2C (buyer to consumer) model which provides ample shopping opportunities to the Indian consumers in an effective manner. As a popular online marketplace, Flipkart also allows the various sellers from across the country to sell their products under different categories on the online platform. It also encourages the sellers to provide various attractive discounts to the buyers or the consumers such that their products are sold off and they earn substantial profits. The sellers get certain amounts from Flipkart after the deduction of the commission by Flipkart for the services provided to the sellers.
The various options taken by Flipkart while formulating its business model include:
- Enhancing the overall website of Flipkart.
- Introducing the web app to the users.
- Introducing the mobile app to the consumers and the optimization of the same.
- Promotions of the products and services on the various social websites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and much more.
- Proper offline advertisements and promotions based on the banners and the TV advertisements.
- Making use of affiliate networks like coupon websites, review websites, bloggers and much more.
As per the progressive business model offered by Flipkart, the percentage of the commission charged by Flipkart from various sellers on its online portal might vary from the type of products and the type of sales. It usually ranges from around 5-20 percent based on the type of services availed by the sellers. In the business model, Flipkart has also introduced the various other forms of income like the marketplace, charging the listing and convenience fees, logistics from the consumers, digital media like the co-advertised products, Myntra – another E-commerce website owned by Flipkart and much more.