Already established in the physical books market, Flipkart is now trying to extend its expertise and experience to the digital format as well. Ravi Vora, Sr. VP – Marketing, says “Flipkart is a clear leader in the Indian books market with 40-45% share of the organized books market in India. Providing seamless content, regardless of platforms, will be a big part of our strategy to further strengthen this position and extend it to the digital space.”
Having been present in the eBooks market for nine months, Flipkart has incorporated its key learnings from this period into the new apps. The most essential of these are speed of access and usability improvements across each app.
Speaking about the app launch and Flipkart’s upcoming plans for eBooks, Mekin Maheswari, Head – Payments and Digital Media, said – “Everything we do at Flipkart is about making the end-user experience easier and more delightful. We don’t believe that the eBook experience should be restricted to a single device. With the launch of these apps, our eBooks titles are now accessible to all readers, no matter which device they use. We already have 2.5 lakh titles on the site and we aim to increase this to 10 lakhs by year-end. And all of these can now be read by a customer, through any smartphone, tablet or PC.”
Key Initiatives:
In addition to making the Flipkart eBook app available to all Windows Phone owners through the Windows Store, Flipkart is also partnering with Nokia for special initiatives. The app will be pre-installed on upcoming Nokia Lumia devices to take the experience to a larger number of customers.
According to Jasmeet Gandhi, Head-Depth, Developer Ecosystem, Nokia India, “Nokia believes in innovative and engaging opportunities with partners that bring us closer to its consumers. With the smartphone emerging as the Indian consumer’s constant companion, we have seen eBook reading gaining immense popularity. We believe Flipkart launching its eBook store app on the Windows Store will catalyze this even further, with Nokia Lumia users indulging in their passion for reading on the go. What makes this partnership even more special is that we have worked very closely with Flipkart to develop the eBook application for the Windows Phone platform.”
The company’s strategic focus on eBooks is supported by Indian authors and publishers who are working with Flipkart to create and expand the market. For example, as part of this launch, well-known authors like Khushwant Singh and Sidin Vadukut have written exclusive pieces that will only be available on Flipkart eBooks that are a part of the Nokia bundle.
Flipkart is also building up a robust collection of regional titles. While it already has an extensive selection of Hindi eBooks, it is looking to expand its Marathi and Bengali offering by the next quarter. It also offers thousands of classic books free on its platform.
Flipkart believes that such initiatives will help seed the habit of reading on digital platforms amongst a larger base of consumers.
With this launch, the Flipkart eBooks app offers:
· A faster, enhanced reading experience:
- The FlipStream technology that the team has created speeds up the reading experience across apps, enabling the reader to access any section of the eBook instantaneously.
· eBook Recommendations: Based on reading habits, the app will give recommendations for the next eBook to be read, right after one finishes reading the current one.
· Smart & personalized reading experience – Readers can control their reading experience by selecting their preferred reading mode (day, night and sepia), font size, orientation (landscape/portrait) etc. These settings will then be applied automatically to every book one reads. One can even highlight the text, take notes, bookmark pages and even refer to a dictionary while reading - without having to leave the app.
· Smooth purchase experience: The ability to purchase and read, seamlessly, from within the app (android/Win8/browser)
· FlipSync: This technology automatically syncs the last read location, highlights, notes and bookmarks across every device one has ever used to log in to the Flipkart eBooks app. So one’s reading experience will start from exactly where it was left off irrespective of the device one is on
· FlipThru: Using FlipThru, one gets to read 10% of the eBook even before buying it
Flipkart has also revamped its existing android app – with several usability improvements within the reader - most importantly its speed and a powerful storefront, enabling customers to complete their eBooks experience, without leaving the device. All the apps are available free of cost.
About Flipkart.com
Flipkart.com is one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in India and has been operational since 2007. Today it offers products across 17+ categories along with a slew of innovative features.
