According to Grant Thornton India,
- E-commerce in India continues to gain traction, with total market size expected to reach USD 188 billion by 2025
- 974 million internet users, 220 milllion online shoppers in India by 2025
- With various sectors going online, e-commerce continues to operate through multiple channels – based on industry and business models
And in this huge potential ecommerce market of India, Flipkart is one of the two leaders. Let’s learn about the way Flipkart do marketing strategy.
Flipkart’s overall marketing strategy
Flipkart’s leading marketing strategy focuses on every single touchpoint their customers are present at. It uses the majority of its budget on various digital channels involving both paid and organic marketing. Moreover, since India has recently experienced digital transformation, the efforts of Flipkart are paying off.
Flipkart also invests intensely in celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing. India is crazy over Bollywood and Flipkart uses this to raise awareness about their brand and to market their services. Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor have all been brand ambassadors who were predominantly featured in Flipkart’s commercials and digital marketing campaigns.
Let’s unveil Flipkart’s Digital marketing Strategy.
A Case Study on Flipkart’s Digital Marketing Strategy.
Flipkart is considered to be one of the best platforms for online shopping. Either we talk about some gadgets or apparel, Flipkart has always shown up their best quality service. Flipkart has mainly grown its business through digital marketing strategy. Let’s discuss, What strategy do they follow? How do they convert their one time customers to loyal customers? How does Flipkart manage to increase the number of its customers? This article will help in the analysis of the tools used by Flipkart in their Digital Marketing Strategy.
Target audience
Flipkart targets anybody who surfs the internet and who does not have time for shopping. Though it’s target audience is scattered over various market segments as consumers from all demographic backgrounds can find products that appeal to their interest, 75% of its audience is between the age group of 16 – 55.
It lays focus on people seeking variety and who prefer to experience a hassle-free shopping approach from home. It tries to expand its services to every location in the country where deliveries are possible. It comes up with smart marketing strategies to seize the attention of its audience who hold the purchasing power, to influence that online shopping is better than traditional shopping.
Search Engine Optimization
Flipkart being the largest online retailer in India has worked immensely on optimizing its platform to rank on the search engine. Every time someone searches for a product, Flipkart appears among the top 2 results, and it is all possible because Flipkart has put a lot of effort into SEO.
As per Ubersuggest, a keyword tool by Neil Patel, Flipkart has a search volume of 45,500,000 while 22.5M people click on SEO results in India.
The average web page that ranks in the top 10 has 560 backlinks and a domain score of 93. These stats are really amazing.
The graph below shows the monthly search volume of Flipkart. As per the latest results in the month of July, Flipkart had a total of 55.6 million searches, out of which 11.3 million were mobile searches while 44.3 million desktop searches.
Ubersuggest gives an idea of keywords for which Flipkart is being searched over the internet. The graph below shows different keywords and their search volume.
As you can see, Flipkart has a search volume of 45.5m which is followed by the Flipkart sale which has a volume of 673000. These are the top keywords that people search on the internet.
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Flipkart’s marketing strategy & why it works
Flipkart’s pivot from electronics to fashion
Flipkart had a very successful run in India till 2015. There were some glitches after this, when Amazon and other e-commerce giants got a taste of Flipkart’s market share, but India’s original e-commerce giant quickly pivoted in response.
Initially, Flipkart was known to be an electronics hub. If you needed a new phone or kitchen appliance, you went on Flipkart.com to check out the latest deals. Today, Flipkart resonates with the Indian audience as a seller of everything from groceries to fashion. This is largely due to their marketing efforts.
Flipkart started a targeted marketing campaign for the fashion segment called “India ka Fashion Capital”, focused on videos featuring celebrities. These videos were used for TV spots as well as YouTube in order to maximize reach. Within just ten days, they were able to garner 100M views on YouTube.
Google was also able to measure the impact of digital vs traditional media strategies, which made it clear that the brand had made a good bet by going all out on digital platforms.
This was one of many campaigns aimed at raising awareness of Flipkart’s fashion and apparel selection which has made a big impact. This, combined with the previous research done on the audience’s awareness of Flipkart’s sales shows that it really does pay to be present at all the touchpoints – especially on digital.
Flipkart today – COVID strategy
The COVID crisis in India this year has resulted in many brands stepping up in the country’s hour of need. Flipkart, being a giant was no exception to this, despite being heavily restricted by law to keep their business from running during this time.
For frontline workers and consumers
Together with parent company Walmart, Flipkart announced that it would donate INR 46 Cr worth of medical supplies to support the fight against coronavirus in India. This includes the donation of protective equipment such as N95 masks and medical gowns, and equipment to NGOs and those working in the frontlines. Additionally, Walmart is donating 7.7 Cr to NGOs – Goonj and Srijan in India, which will be used to collect food, medicines and other equipment for distribution.
Additionally, Flipkart also partnered with Tata Consumer Products so as to ensure a greater supply of essential food and grocery items for their customers.
Flipkart #SmartBuy also launched hand sanitizers and surgical masks in April, to fight the shortage. Not only that, Flipkart also joined forces with Uber and Meru Cabs in India, to deliver essential items to consumers in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
For their delivery network and partners
Flipkart has stepped up the medical cover they provide for those working in their supply chain network – including local stores, as well as individuals. Their insurance provides protection against lost income during the COVID crisis as well as medical insurance for outpatient care, consultation and pharmacy requirements.
Flipkart made sure to take care of the ecosystem that drives their main business. This, of course, is something that will help them win big in the long run, and bounce back once the economy recovers from the crisis.
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Marketing strategy of Flipkart – Flipkart strategy analysis
Competitive advantage in the Marketing strategy of Flipkart
In a highly competitive E-commerce market of India. companies are finding it hard to differentiate their offering from others.
Flipkart have gained several competitive advantages over others:
- They have acquired companies like Myntra, Jabong, Appiterate, Letsbuy, Mine360, chakpak.com, weread and the latest one being UPI-based payments start-up PhonePe. These companies are helping it in enhancing its functional capabilities.
- Founders are Ex-Amazon employee so they have the required know how of e-commerce.
- Flipkart had received $700M of funding last year after which its valuation gone to $15 billion.
- It has a fantastic positioning in the mobiles and small appliances segment.
BCG Matrix in the Marketing strategy of Flipkart
Flipkart’s merchandising section (including Myntra) as well as its electronics segment is a Star in the BCG matrix. The reason is that the segment is growing and more & more customers are getting accustomed with online buying of clothes & electronics items in India. But as the market is huge, the market share is less for each E-commerce player and they are fighting hard for it.
All other segments are question mark due to intense competition between the players. Profitability is low overall so the future is unknown.
Distribution strategy in the Marketing strategy of Flipkart
Having its own distribution firm (Ekart) and payment gateway payzippy has helped the company in controlling its expenses and passing the benefits to the end customer.
The very demerit of Flipkart’s distribution channel is its reach as compared to the peer E-commerce companies like Amazon, Snapdeal Ebay etc who can deliver the customer’s order even to the remote locations.
One more problem of Flipkart is that it does not support sellers with package size of above 8 kgs. You have to use flipkart advantage for the same.
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Marketing strategies of Flipkart and How it becomes the largest e-commerce platform in India
In 2007, Flipkart was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. They both are from IIT Delhi and also have worked in Amazon. In its initial day’s company was focusing on selling books online but after some time when the company getting more orders so it also started selling a wide range of products like lifestyle, Fitness, home décor, appliances, clothing and so many more. In 14 years Company becomes one of the top online retail giants. In this article, we are sharing some of the game-changing marketing strategies of Flipkart which help it to becomes the largest e-commerce platform.
What are the Marketing Strategies of Flipkart
Easy Interface
Flipkart has a very easy and accessible interface so even child can operate it and buy the products which is one of the essential marketing strategies of Flipkart because it’s so obvious that customer would never come back if he/she finds so many steps and procedure for buying any utility.
More payment methods
Many online Valuable companies or services like Netflix, Amazon prime accept payment by digital method or by credit/debit card, and in Indian, so many people both in urban and rural do not have access to these payment methods and they can make a purchase only in cash. Here, Flipkart Makes a move by providing cash on delivery service and by which more persons can make purchases from Flipkart. It is one of the best marketing strategies for growing consumers. If you want to know about customer experience then we recommend you have a look at How to improve CXM (Customer Experience) Strategy. Flipkart accepts almost all payment methods.
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Flipkart History And Marketing Strategies
Company Name– Flipkart
Founder– Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal
Flipkart Pvt Ltd. is one of the most popular Indian e-commerce companies based out of Bengaluru in India. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in October 2007.
Initially, it focused on selling books online with shipping services all over the world. It slowly grew in 2008 by receiving more than 100 orders in a day.
It took slow steps and gradually expanded into other product categories such as electronics, lifestyle, and fashion products.
How It All Started
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal were alumni from the IIT, Delhi, and worked for Amazon.
They founded Flipkart in 2007 and previously focused on the marketing of books only. After a year, it expanded into other product categories and since then there has been no looking back.
The very first product of Flipkart was a book by John Wood called “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World” and was sold to a customer in Hyderabad.
Launching
The founders of Flipkart had the idea of starting an e-commerce company as they already worked in companies with the same background and business strategy.
India is a country where everybody has various preferences, tastes, and starting an e-commerce company here was challenging and definitely risky.
In the last decade, Flipkart has acquired various companies in India. One of the most prominent takeovers was in 2014 and 2016 when Flipkart took over Myntra and Jabong respectively. Today, they continue to operate alongside Flipkart
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7 Ps in the marketing mix of Flipkart
Product
Flipkart entered the e-commerce market as a bookseller but widened its product mix to include music, movies, and mobiles within three years. Over the years, it has continued to grow its product mix. The company has extended its portfolio through acquisitions, including Myntra. Flipkart sells more than 80 million products on its digital marketplace in more than 80 categories. The main product categories include electronics, televisions and home appliances, men’s products (including fashion products, footwear, and accessories), products for women, babies and kids, as well as home furnishing products and grocery apart from other product categories like sports-related products, books, auto accessories, and fitness products. Flipkart is the largest online retailer in the Indian e-commerce market that enjoys a larger market share than Amazon India at 31.9% (S&PGlobal). While Amazon is not very far behind with a market share of 31.2%, Flipkart’s popularity in specific product segments like electronics and home appliances is very high. There are 100 thousand sellers that sell their products online on Flipkart. You can imagine the scale of sales from the number of page visits on the Flipkart website and app as well as the number of registered users on the web site. Every day, the website and app receive 10 million page visits, and there are 100 million registered users on Flipkart. The website had crossed the milestone of 100 million registered users in 2016 only.
Apart from selling products on its e-commerce sites including Flipkart, Myntra, and Jabong, the brand also offers services like flight bookings as well as online payments. Phonepe is a payment app used widely across India and is among the top ten trusted payment solutions. Its main rivals include Google Pay and Paytm. However, Google Pay and PhonePe are among the most used digital payment solutions in India whose popularity grew faster following the demonetization. PhonePe launched its switch platform in 2018 from which users can place orders across over 200 apps including taxi, train, and flight booking apps. It introduced a nice range of insurance products also to grow its user base which is already above 230 million. Flipkart’s range of financial services has grown larger by the addition of these services to PhonePe’s services mix. In the future, Flipkart aspires to become the most comprehensive financial services platform in India. Phone Pe has partnered with leading players in the insurance and mutual funds sectors to widen its range of financial services and gain stronger footing as an online provider of financial services. Flipkart continues to grow its range of services in order to balance its portfolio of products and services.
Place
Flipkart’s business spans entire India and the company has established an efficient distribution channel that apart from tier 1, 2, and 3 cities in India also delivers to smaller towns as well as rural areas. The company has its headquarters in Bangalore (one of four metropolitan cities in India), in the South Indian state of Karnataka. Flipkart’s warehouses serve 22000 Pincode locations across India. One of the most massive warehouses of Flipkart is located on the outskirts of Hyderabad, the capital of South Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. This warehouse, apart from being the largest in India is also the first fully automated warehouse in the country. The growth of e-commerce in India depends, to a large extent, on how leading players manage their distribution system. Making deliveries possible to remote areas in various Indian states requires that the company establishes modern and hi-tech warehouses in different corners of the nation. The Hyderabad warehouse of Flipkart is a hi-tech warehouse. It relies on advanced technologies like IoT equipped automated conveyor belts, IT-based packaging, and tracking solutions, digital inventory management systems as well as other forms of digital solutions. These technologies enable the swift movement of goods and services from one part of India to another.
While the e-commerce website Flipkart conducts its business online mainly, its distribution system supports its business operations across entire India like a backbone. The company has established a network of fulfillment centers in states including Haryana, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and West Bengal.
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