3.  Its an online retailing company
 Within 4 years into operations it has become
one of India’s fastest growing e-commerce
portals, known particularly for books…

4.  8,000,000 VISITS EVERY MONTH
 28000+ ITEMS SHIPPED PER DAY
 11,500,000 BOOK TITLES AVAILABLE
 15 CITIES WITH OWN DELIVERY NETWORK
 3000 CURRENT TEAM STRENGTH

5. “Our vision was always to be the Amazon of India,”
says Bansal.
Flipkart has around 10 million books on its
catalogue across different genres and is now
moving into selling other products such as
 Movies
 Music
 Games
 Mobiles
 Cameras
 Computers
 Healthcare & personal products
 Home appliances and electronics – and still
counting!
Every month it gets about
6 million visitors online

6.  Sachin Bansal  Binny Bansal
 CEO and Co-founder  COO and Co-founder
 Binny went on to get a degree in
 He graduated from IIT-Delhi with Computer Engineering from IIT Delhi.
a degree in Computer Engineering.
 He had a brief stint at Amazon before
 In 2006 he joined Amazon.com in taking the entrepreneurial plunge with
Flipkart.
India which he later left to set-up
Flipkart.
 At Flipkart, Binny oversees all
 As CEO, Sachin oversees all the operational activities that
customer facing activities of come into play from the time
the company ranging from the customer places an order
technology to marketing. till the time of delivery.
 He is also in charge of  This spans across divisions like
Flipkart's corporate divisions warehousing, logistics and
which include the finance and customer support.
legal departments.

7.  Both the Bansals have
worked for Amazon in the
past. Sachin joined  Bansal believed “I never
Amazon in January wanted to go abroad
2006, followed by Bansal unlike most IITians. I
in January 2007. Both wanted to be in India but
quit in September 2007. create something on the
 “While at Amazon, we Internet using technology
realized we should do that we can create at
something on our own home, hoard up and make
since the scope for e- millions of dollars.”
commerce was huge,”

8.  They began working from a  Flipkart, headquartered in
2BHK apartment in Bangalore. Bangalore, now has around
One of the rooms was 120 employees.
converted into an office.  Initially, few distributors or
 They tied up with all the publishers took them seriously.
distributors of major Indian  So what has been the key to the
publishers in Bangalore. company’s sudden rise?
 Every day, one of them would
go on a bike and buy books to
make their own catalogue.
 They would sit down on the
floor and make the packages to
give to the courier agencies for
shipment. This went on for
three months, with just two
people running the whole
show.

9.  With path-breaking features
like Cash/Card on Delivery, 30
Day replacement policy and
EMI options, Flipkart has now
“We were clear made it possible for anyone
from the beginning across the country with
that the focus of our firm internet access to shop online.
would be totally customer-  The Flipkart experience is
oriented characterized by the intuitive
while having a strong user interface, free shipping
technological base.” and low prices.
 As a testimony to the superior
customer experience, the
-Binny Bansal, company has consistently
COO & co-founder recorded repeat purchase
of Flipkart rates of more than 70%.

10.  Backed by a significant funding of $31
million, Flipkart is rapidly expanding its network
of
warehouses, distribution centers, procurement
operations and 24/7 customer support teams.
 The company even has its own delivery network
in 13 cities and is set to expand this to 25 cities
by next year.

11.  “We needed to build a  “We looked at how Chinese companies—where
slick website that was e-commerce is huge—did retail online.
fast, and where the  The US has an established credit card
discovery of the culture, while China (like India) is a cash-based
product was easy. economy with lesser credit card penetration.
Also, the payment  So looking at e-commerce models in China, we
delivery systems had put in place a cash-on-delivery system.”
to be easy and
smooth,” says Bansal.  Today, more than 50% of their orders operate
on a cash-on-delivery basis.
 An important change  Most importantly, on nearly each book a
took place around consumer buys through Flipkart, the price is
2010: the payment “15-35%” cheaper than the cover price.
mechanism. It’s a  50% of their orders come from the metros:
feature of Flipkart’s Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and
model that is distinct Hyderabad. The remaining buyers are from
from Amazon’s. other parts of the country.
 More than 60% of Flipkart’s customers are
working males between the ages of 25 and 35.

13.  With the iPad and the
Kindle, what is the future
of books and booksellers
such as Flipkart?
 The projection for the US
is that 50% of books will
be e-books by 2015. In
India, it will be by 2018 or
2020, not before that.”
 However, the demand for
the normal paperback or
hardcover is still high in
India.