Business / Industries

India's smarter-shopping Phenom

By Emanuel John in Kolkata For China Daily (China Daily) Updated: 2014-05-05 10:14

Recognizing that India, much like China, is primarily a cash-based economy, Bansal decided that Flipkart would use this to its advantage. "So looking at e-commerce models in China, (we) put in place a cash-on-delivery system," he says.

More than half of Flipkart's orders now operate on a cash-on-delivery basis, with many books sold at 15 to 35 percent cheaper than the cover price. This is distinctly different from how Amazon operates.

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Ensuring the website was slick and fast was another major factor, with a user-friendly payment delivery system in place. "Everything we have done - the services we have launched, the technology we use, the supply chain network we have built up - has been geared toward providing our customers with a superior online shopping experience."

For smartphone and tablet users, the company developed apps to make mobile shopping easier. More than 20 percent of Flipkart orders are now made by smartphone.

The most important thing he learned while working at Amazon is to focus on the customer, he says. "Customer satisfaction, as a value, is of primary importance at Flipkart as well."

A major challenge for online businesses is to reassure customers that their credit card details are in safe hands. Flipkart set out to put customers at ease from the beginning.

"One of our very first marketing campaigns, the hugely popular 'No Kidding, No Worries', was aimed at clearing up some prevalent concerns customers had about online shopping. Each ad addressed one aspect of the issues - from cash-on-delivery to assurances of original products, availability of warranty and the option to replace the product within 30 days in case of defect," he says.

With e-commerce still in early stages in India, Bansal has no immediate plans for Flipkart to go global as he feels it has "just scratched the surface" at home.

The main reason e-commerce has been slow to take off in India, he believes, is due to slow broadband and Internet penetration. "While the situation is improving rapidly, especially with the growth of data-enabled smartphones, the start was delayed."