Flipkart is Wooing big brands to create exclusive 'stores' on the digital marketplace

India: Most popular apparel and electronic brands like Puma, Samsung, Bosch, Peter England etc. are creating their exclusive stores in Flipkart’s digital marketplace. These stores have already been launched in the mobile app of Flipkart and expecting a desktop launch some time later. In order to retain its dominance in the fierce online retail market competition Flipkart is helping these top brands to drive sales and target customers by using its analysis and data.

Flipkart is initiating the process of cutting down its expenses and driving revenues to maintain the leadership and has already found the customers in the form of Samsung, Puma, Wildcraft, Peter England, HP, @Home and Vu Technologies and the response from these companies is encouraging the initiative. Flipkart will create an analytics platform under this initiative called as ‘Brand Hub”, which is a self-service platform and allows companies to target specific customers and display their products according to defined parameters like income bracket, gender etc. In return customers will be alerted at the time collections will be updated and they can follow brands accordingly.

Flipkart’s initiative will help the brands to target customers in a personalized manner and further aims to maintain a symbiotic relationship as brands will have a control on what and how they are showcasing their products to customers. The company data claims that they have 50 million mobile app downloads and 75 million registered users. Flipkart is claiming that their past data of potential customers will help brands to judge the customers behaviour on the basis of past purchases made by them.

The move is a part of Flipkart’s management restructuring initiative and aimed at earning more revenues. Though the eight brands are still testing up the service and Flipkart is not charging any fees from them, but the company is expecting this process as a revenue booster and expecting good sales from it. Another feature of this strategy is to attract the existing customers for repeat purchase and cutting costs and marketing expenses by monetising traffic generated through data analytics and ads.

According to TechSci Research, top brands has been in a fractious relationship with the online retailers due to discounting practices they follow but this move will surely help the brands to closely connect with the customers by maintaining a healthy relationship and further will help in differentiating themselves to the customers. Flipkart competes with online retailers like Snapdeal and Amazon but this approach will help the company to align its advertising strategy and will result in closely connecting the buyers and sellers.

According to a recent report published by TechSci Research, “India E-commerce Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020”, the country’s e-commerce market is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 36% during 2015-2020. E-services segment, which comprises online travel, online payments, online classifieds, etc., is expected to continue its domination through 2020. However, the e-tail segment that includes electronics, apparels & accessories, health and personal care, etc., is expected to witness significantly higher market growth compared to e-services segment over the next five years. During 2015-20, the western region is expected to remain the largest e-commerce market in the country. Major players operating in India’s e-tail market include Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.