Flipkart Profile q6p2d

Company Profile of Flipkart Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007. In its initial years, Flipkart focused on online sales of books, but it later expanded to electronic goods and a variety of other products. Flipkart offers multiple payment methods like credit card, debit card, net banking, e-gift voucher, and the major of all Cash on Delivery. The cashon-delivery model adopted by Flipkart has proven to be of great significance since credit card and net banking penetration is very low in India. Flipkart was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They worked for Amazon.com before quitting and founding their own company. Initially they used word of mouth marketing to popularise their company. A few months later, the company sold its first book on flipkart.com—John Woods' Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. Today, as per Alexa traffic rankings, Flipkart is among the top 20 Indian Web sites and has been credited with being India's largest online bookseller with over 11 million titles on offer. Flipkart claims to have had at least 100% growth every quarter since its founding.[citation needed] The store started with selling books and in 2010 branched out to selling CDs, DVDs, mobile phones and accessories, cameras, computers, computer accessories and peripherals, and in 2011, pens & stationery, other electronic items such as home appliances, kitchen appliances, personal care gadgets, health care products etc. Further in 2012, Flipkart added A.C, air coolers, school supplies, office supplies, art supplies & life style products to its product portfolio. As of today, Flipkart employs more than 4500 people. Initially funded by the Bansals themselves with 400,000, Flipkart has raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India (US$1 million in 2009) and Tiger Global (US$10 million in 2010 and US$20 million in June 2011). Flipkart.com, on August 24, 2012 announced the completion of its 4th round of $150 million funding from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and ICONIQ Capital.

Acquisition •

2010: WeRead, a social book discovery tool. The stated goal was to give Flipkart a social recommendation platform for buyers to make informed decisions based on recommendations from people within their social network.

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2011: Mime360, a digital content platform company.

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2011: Chakpak.com is a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos. Flipkart acquired the rights to Chakpak’s digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10,000 movies and close to 50,000 ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not use the brand name.

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2012: Letsbuy.com is India's second largest e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an estimated US$25 million. Letsbuy.com had been closed down and all the traffic of Letsbuy is diverted to Flipkart.

Business Results Flipkart's reported sales were 40 million in FY 2008–2009, 200 million in FY 2009–2010 and 750 million for FY 2010–2011. In FY 2011–2012, Flipkart is set to cross the 5 billion (US$100 million) mark as Internet usage in the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online. Flipkart projects its sales to reach US$10 billion by year 2014. On average, Flipkart sells nearly 20 products per minute and is aiming at generating a revenue of 50 billion (US$1 billion) by 2015. Locations The company's headquarters is located in Bangalore's Koramangala neighbourhood. Flipkart has offices, warehouses and customer service centres across India. Warehouses are located in the following cities, often near airports. From here on, Flipkart delivers the products to 95 cities which includes 2500 pincodes across India through its own logistics. •

Bangalore, Karnataka

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Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka

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Delhi

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Bhiwandi, Maharashtra

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Mumbai, Maharashtra

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Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

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Chennai, Tamil Nadu

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Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

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Noida, Uttar Pradesh

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Kolkata, West Bengal

Current Developments The company is expanding its courier service network to deliver products quickly, and to extend the COD option to most of the Indian parts as well. Recently the company started Flipkart Self delivery to offer faster shipping times. With the new delivery system customers can now track their orders in real time in Flipkart's website itself. Products Flipkart started with selling books. In 2010, they added to their catalogue media (including music, movies and games) and mobile phones and accessories. In 2011, product launches included cameras, computers, pens & office supplies, computer accessories, home and kitchen appliances, personal care, health care, gaming consoles, audio players and televisions. In 2012, product launches includes health & beauty products, Life style products which includes watches, belts, bags & luggage. In November 2011, Flipkart launched a new Electronic Wallet feature that allows shoppers to purchase credit to their Flipkart using credit or debit cards, and can subsequently be utilised to make purchases on the site, as and when required. From June 2012, Flipkart allowed people to buy toys, posters and from October 2012, Flipkart entered into apparel retailing. Flyte Digital Music Store In

October

and

November

2011,

Flipkart

acquired

the

websites

Mime360.com and Chakpak.com. Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store. Flyte, a legal music service in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, will offer DRM-free MP3 s. Flyte offers browse

by language options where s can international as well as regional songs. Flipkart has listed the music based on its genre on the new music store and has given a lot of variety. s can shop for tracks from various albums starting at 6 on the store. A purchased song can only be ed maximum 4 times on an internet enabled device. Flipkart hits 100Cr mark in July 2012, while Flyte garners 600K s in 5 Months. Flipkart has launched the ebook application on the Android platform on Nov 28, 2012. Flipkart.com's digital store Flyte forayed into the eBooks category. With a rich selection of more than 100,000 books at highly attractive prices, Flyte is all set to bring about a change in the reading habits of Indian book lovers. To encourage Indian readers to try eBooks, Flyte is pricing its eBooks starting at Rs 30, besides providing 4,000 free titles. Latest News on Flipkart Flipkart.com's digital store Flyte forayed into the eBooks category. With a rich selection of more than 100,000 books at highly attractive prices, Flyte is all set to bring about a change in the reading habits of Indian book lovers. To encourage Indian readers to try eBooks, Flyte is pricing its eBooks starting at Rs 30, besides providing 4,000 free titles. Valentine's Day: Online retailers line up naughty gifts to woo lovebirds AHMEDABAD/BANGALORE: Indian marketers, especially online retailers, are offering romantic gifts ranging from plain old flowers and teddy bears to sassy ones such as erotic books and condoms at a discount to make the most of the Valentine's Day market pegged at Rs 1,500 crore. For young at heart customers, shopping portals such as Jabong, Indiatimes, Flipkart and Caratlane are running discount offers on thousands of gift options for V-Day on February 14 that celebrates love. Online shopping portal Flipkart, whose gift options range from teddy bears to beauty care, has asked all employees to come dressed in shades of red and pink on Valentine's day when it will decorate its office with red frills and hearts.

Bansal's divest risk, move Flipkart to Singapore for growth Flipkart the online e portal selling books, electronics and consumer durables skirted around India's regulatory tangle as it is tries to reinvent itself. To ensure adequate fund flow to sustain its diversified and rapidly growing operations it has moved its backend technology company out of the country to Singapore. This highly profitable part is also capital intensive owning core software like Oracle Financials and other drivers and has been acquired by Flipkart Holdings Singapore floated in 2011. The distribution front end of the business called Flipkart Logistics that employs around 4000 employees has been sold off to WS Retail Services of Rajiv Kuchhal who earned his spurs at Infosys BPO and OnMobile. Started in December 2010 Flipkart Logistics was devised to hold and deliver stocks, namely offer warehousing, logistics and the delivery end COD operations. Whereas it would have access to customer receipts that form the bulk of revenue generated by the online portal it would be also carrying the risk of high 'return of goods' and host a business model that is considered by some analysts as 'too customer friendly to make any business sense.' This model of COD payments and a month long 'return of goods' policy is said to be successful in China but not in other nations.

In 2007 Flipkart's promoters Sachin and Binny Bansal, Delhi IIT grads who completed small stints at Amazon, commenced operation with a capital of just Rs 4 lakhs. Selling books online it worked its way through the credit driven book distribution industry offering better payment than most book sellers to win the trust and commitment of publishers and distributors and establish a sales of around a modest Rs 1 lakh per annum by middle of 2009. The company came to the notice of angel investor Accel Partners which invested Rs 2 crore reportedly at a valuation of around 10 crore during the third quarter of 2009 after which its sales spurted. By December 2009 it roped in Tiger Global who having profited from several e commerce portals in China was looking for investments in India and put in a whopping Rs 10 crore at an enhanced valuation of Rs 220 crore that reportedly stumped even Accel Partners.

Television advertising, sales growth, stock warehousing, and product diversification, began simultaneously as the investor money showed its prowess. Flipkart showed a 400 percent year on year growth since 2010 and got a further funding of $150 million from Naspers a South African venture capital firm. Tiger Global not only kept on funding Flipkart but reportedly hand held them as they grew rapidly and looked outwards for more funding. Both Accel Partners and Tiger Global were early investors in Facebook whose valuation was hyped from $ 6 billion in August 2009 to $ 100 billion at the IPO three years later. Together with Goldman Sachs who master minded the valuation spike strategy they profited billions selling out days before the Facebook IPO which incidentally crashed after opening at $38 at the Nasdaq to more realistic levels of around $20 . They also cashed out from Yandex the Russian search engine and Dangdang the Chinese e portal a online retailer known as the Chinese Amazon just before the IPO making huge profits. E commerce business needs deep pockets and one of the known ways of financing such projects is investor capital. The hugely successful Amazon survived on investor capital for almost a decade before it broke into profits in 2003. The $ 2.8 billion IPO of 1998 by Amazon was a not an issue from a profitable company but the liberal US laws permitted such public funding. The Indian regulatory atmosphere does not allow operationally loss making companies raise funds from IPO. So the only way to grow was private equity. After being turned down by General Atlantic Partners among the top ten global private equity player's who refused to invest in Flipkart citing ing issues in 2010 the Bansal's were getting increasingly desperate to getting investor money to finance its growth. The Governments recently introduced FDI policy did not permit FDI in the B2C business to commerce segment. So foreign venture capital to fund an Indian online retail operation had its limits. There were only two ways to push growth for Flipkart. One was to sell off the stakes completely to a bigger company who had the liquidity to push a high paced growth. The second was split the company and take the technology end abroad and raise funds through an IPO at a higher valuation after divesting the risk that lay largely in the operational portion. Rajesh Magow, CFO of online travel company MakeMyTrip.com which recently went through a similar split is on the board of Flipkart

and is reported to have advised the start up to adopt route 2 . Another online retail start up from India who could hit the disinvestment track to raise funds is Myantra also funded by Accel Partners and Tiger Global. Clearly Indian entrepreneurs are not ready to be shackled by restrictive Indian laws and are restructuring themselves to reach global highs. Valyoo Tech raises Rs 53 cr from Unilazer, IDG – More Developments in ECommerce BANGALORE: UTV founder Ronnie Screwvala led Unilazer Ventures this week opened its



in

the

e-commerce

sector

by

investing

in

Delhi-based Valyoo

Technologies which owns sites like LensKart, BagsKart, WatchKart and JewelKart. Uniazer along with existing investor IDG Ventures India have invested Rs 53 crore (about $10 million) in the company. IDG Ventures India had invested $4 million (Rs 22 crore) in the startup in 2011. Unilazer, which has a fund size of about $100 million, is expected to take a double digit stake in Valyoo Technologies in lieu of the investment. This is the first investment for Screwvala's

Unilazer

Ventures

in

India's

$10

billion

e-commerce

sector.

"We had evaluated about 30 e-commerce startups before choosing Valyoo Technologies, for its core leadership team, which has remained together and demonstrated its execution abilities for many years," said Amit Banka, Managing Director of Unilazer Ventures

Limited.

The Unilazer Venture Fund, established last year with a corpus of about $100 million, focuses on early to late stage startups. "Eye care and eye wear is a massive and growing unbranded market which Valyoo strives to convert and capture," said Banka, adding that the sector agnostic fund aims at a five-year exit period. Valyoo Technologies, founded by IIM-B graduate Peeyush Bansal in 2010, has raised about Rs 75 crore till now. IDG Ventures India had invested $4 million (Rs 22 crore) in the startup in October 2011. "We have grown over 20 times in turnover during last 12 months," said Bansal, who evaluated about 10 venture funds before choosing Unilazer.

Valyoo's flagship website Lenskart.com, contributes about 50% to the company's revenues. LensKart is among the larger online players in India's $4 billion eyewear market, with rivals such as GKB Opticals, Optique and online retailers such as Yebhi and Infibeam, competing for market space. "With this money we will expand to smaller towns and cities, build offline franchises and design products based upon specific market research about customer preferences. We will also strengthen our supply chain and invest in marketing," said Bansal. Indian $10 billion e-commerce market grew by a whopping 70% last year and also attracted high investor interest. Private equity investors pumped in $600 million into startups such as Myntra, Flipkart, and Yebhi. The number of e-commerce transactions also jumped from 46 in 2011 to 72 deals last year.

Wonderful Achievement by Flipkart on Facebook – 1.2 million likes

Going forward for mileage through Gaming

Flipkart’s new promotion through Coupon Bazaar

Flipkart is one of the first names you get in your mind when you talk about online shopping. Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal started Flipkart in 2007. With its headquarters in Karnataka (Bengaluru), this renowned e-commerce organization commenced its journey with online selling of books and gradually included more and more variety of products in their range. To check out the range of products offered by Flipkart, you just need to log on to this online store, where you will find various categories mainly Cameras, Books, Gaming, Baby Care, Computers, Watches, Toys; Mobiles and Accessories; Beauty and Health Care; Home and Kitchen; TV, Video and Audio; Music, Movies and Posters; Belts, Bags and Luggage; and Pens and Stationery. Under these there would be subcategories and by clicking on them you get the numerous products available. Flipkart discount coupons help you to grab some of the best deals in market. Under the above categories the wide range of products include items like laptops, refrigerators, washing-machines, MP3 players, DVDs, Office and School supplies, Air coolers and so on. The products are affordable as well as branded. Flipkart also offers you services like Music Store and ‘My MP3 Library’. The Music Store happens to be a vast and lawful music store online. ‘My MP3 Library’ helps you to re- your previously ed songs (not more three times). Creating an at Flipkart.com is easy and it makes your shopping easier. Though, to buy an item in this online store, it is not compulsory to have an with it, however, once you have an you can keep a track of your orders. If you need to check your order status you can just go to your , where you get the ‘My Orders’ option. Go to the particular order you are interested in. As soon as you put your order number your order details are displayed in no time. Using an you can also keep Flipkart updated about your personal details (like address and information). Payment for your orders here is, like everything else, hassle free. For your convenience different payment methods are made available in this store. You can pay via Net Banking, debit cards, credit cards, Cash-on-Delivery, E-Gift Voucher or Flipkart Wallet. Security regarding payments is fully maintained in Flipkart, so sharing your bank card information should not be a problem. The most important thing is you pay what you see online while selecting your products. The product prices here include everything and

no hidden extra costs are involved in such transactions and if you get some Flipkart coupons you can save money on your purchase. You can shop from any place in the globe. However, the products can be delivered to addresses only within India as Flipkart is not into international deliveries yet. If the amount of your order is equal to or exceeds Rs. 200, the delivery is completely free. Orders with amount lesser than Rs. 200 will cost you delivery fees of Rs. 30 only. One of the best features of this online shop is its policy of replacement of products within 30 days of purchase. If you find that a faulty or damaged product has been delivered to you, you can inform the same to Flipkart (through Customer Care) within thirty days after you get the delivery. The product will certainly be exchanged completely free of charge.