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.