#Flipkart buys online shopping portal #Jabong for $70 million in an all cash deal

 

#Flipkart buys online shopping portal #Jabong for $70 million in an all cash deal pic.twitter.com/SzBBOJU6zv

— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) July 26, 2016

“Fashion (esp. women’s fashion) is a top category on e-commerce platforms in terms of transaction volume and growth, and also one of the most competitive due to lots of brands and manufacturers. The acquisition of fashion platforms is a move for Flipkart to not only further penetrate into the red-hot category but also maintain its leadership position in the market and keep Amazon at bay. We expect major players to keep acquiring niche and smaller players to expand into more product categories, demographics and geographies, and add new functionalities to their offerings,” said Sandy Shen, Research Director at Gartner commenting on the deal.

#Flipkart is under ED’s radar for alleged #FEMA violations on #BigBillionDay sale

#Flipkart is under ED’s radar for alleged #FEMA violations on #BigBillionDay sale
— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) October 14, 2014

Flipkart is under ED’s radar for alleged FEMA violations. Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to impose Rs 1000 crore penalty on #Flipkart for flouting Fema rules on 'Big  Billion Day' sale.

#NirmalaSitharaman says that govt has received lots of complaint against #Flipkart & online retail companies on their biggest online sales.
— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) October 8, 2014

#Flipkart’s big fiasco on its #BigBillionDay and its founders’ #apology

Flipkart founders have sent an email to its customers apologising for the problems they experienced during the Big Billion Day Sale.

Dear Customer,
Yesterday was a big day for us. And we really wanted it to be a great day for you. But at the end of the day, we know that your experience was less than pleasant. We did not live up to the promises we made and for that we are really and truly sorry.
It took enormous effort from everyone at Flipkart, many months of preparation and pushing our capabilities and systems to the limit to be able to create this day. We were looking at fulfilling the dreams of millions of Indian consumers through deals and offers we had painstakingly put together for months.

There is no way for #Flipkart to redeem itself, is there? Even their #apology is over-analysed...
— Vivek Srinivasan (@viveksrn) October 7, 2014

And though we saw unprecedented interest in our products and traffic like never before, we also realized that we were not adequately prepared for the sheer scale of the event. We didn't source enough products and deals in advance to cater to your requirements. To add to this, the load on our server led to intermittent outages, further impacting your shopping experience on our site.
An unprecedented 1.5 million people shopped at Flipkart yesterday. While we stand humbled by the sheer faith that such a large number of customers have shown in us, we are unhappy that we were unable to live up to the expectations of millions more who wanted to buy from us yesterday.
And this is not acceptable to us.

The apology email from @Flipkart is heartfelt, sincere and rare in the times when not owning upto goof ups is rather fashionable..
— Rujuta Diwekar (@RujutaDiwekar) October 8, 2014

Delighting you, and every single one of our customers, is absolutely the top most priority for Flipkart and we have worked very hard over the last seven years to earn your trust. Yesterday, we failed that trust. We have learnt some valuable lessons from this and have started working doubly hard to address all the issues that cropped up during this sale.
Price Changes As we were preparing various deals and promotional pricing in the lead up to the sale, the pricing of several products got changed to their non-discounted rates for a few hours. We realise that this breaks the trust our customers have put in us. We are truly sorry for this and will ensure that this never happens again.
Out-of-stock Issues We ran out of the stock for many products within a few minutes (and in some cases, seconds) of the sale going live. For example, most of our special deals were sold out as soon as they went live. We had ensured availability, anywhere from hundreds to a few lakh units for various products, but it was nowhere near the actual demand. We promise to plan much better for future promotions and ensure that we minimise the out-of-stock issues.
Cancellations we had large number of people buying specific products simultaneously. This led to some instances of an order getting over-booked for a product that was sold out just a few seconds ago. We are working round-the-clock to ensure availability of additional units for these products and will do our level best to ensure that we minimise any cancellations.
Website Issues We realise that the shopping experience for many of you was frustrating due to errors and unavailability of the website at times. We had deployed nearly 5000 servers and had prepared for 20 times the traffic growth - but the volume of traffic at different times of the day was much higher than this. We are continuing to significantly scale up all our back end systems so that we do a much, much better job next time.
Everything that we have achieved at Flipkart is purely on the basis of our customer's trust and faith. This is why we come to work each day and continue to remain extremely passionate about building the best possible customer experience for Indian consumers. We failed to live up to this promise yesterday and would like to apologise once again to every single customer for our failure.

Thank you. Sachin and Binny

Publisher of the Brand Trust Report, N.Chandramouli's take on Flipkart’s latest marketing effort ‘The Big Billion Day’ which left several users angered with severs crashing, dropped orders and alleged ‘false’ discounts after being led to believe differently through Flipkart’s aggressive advertising campaigns in the weeks leading up to the event.

“The entire fiasco has made Flipkart very vulnerable in terms of customer trust. The biggest challenge for any online medium is that unlike brick-and-mortar outlets, its transaction lacks a tactile experience. Intrinsically the affinity to any online store is only due to trust held in its technology, assured delivery, and the ability to keep the transaction secure. With Flipkart’s much publicized online sale, its consumers’ ‘Capacity to Trust’, the first foundation of Trust, has definitely reduced, in even the most ardent fans of Flipkart. Though their apology and acceptance of responsibility is a good sign, it should have come a little earlier. Unfortunately, some TV reports even have the Flipkart promoters calling the day a huge success. Apart from this, Snapdeal having done almost as much business with smartly positioned advertisements, is now being seen as a smart competitor. There are several who would have shifted allegiance from Flipkart due to this recent incident.”

#ALCATEL ONETOUCH launches Fire C2G smartphone @Rs.1,990/-available on #flipkart

ALCATEL ONETOUCH and Mozilla has partnerd to launch affordable smartphones priced at Rs 1,990/- powered by Firefox OS. The new Fire C2G smartphone is available only on Flipkart.com exclusively.

#ALCATEL ONETOUCH launches Fire C2G smartphone @Rs.1,990/-available on #flipkart pic.twitter.com/LhqWhcU2zm
— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) October 1, 2014

Key features of FIRE C – 2G are-

·         OS version - Firefox 1.3
·         Compact, pocket friendly design
·         3.5” HVGA display
·         1.0 GHz
·         1.3 camera
·         Color - BLUISH BLACK and DARK CHOCOLATE
·        1000 mAh battery
·         Multilingual Support - English, Bangla, Tamil and Hindi languages

The FIRE C is a pocket-sized smartphone. It is designed to make sharing simple. Its 3.5” HVGA screen and 1 GHZ Processor offer smooth and fast Firefox OS apps experience. Complete with mobile broadband and stereo FM radio RDS, the FIRE C2G offers all of the features needed to capture, share and enjoy content. Firefox is totally a web HTML based OS which gives best user experience on-the-go. It constitutes marketplace and best adaptive applications search along with rich media and social messaging apps support. A Unique Dynamic UI will be a Big Plus for the Phone.

On the launch of Fire C,Mr. Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, APAC BU Indiafor ALCATEL ONETOUCH, said, “As a launch partner for Firefox OS, we know that our customers love its simple user interface and smooth navigation. We see a great deal of opportunity to bring these benefits to more consumers on a greater variety of devices at most affordable price and we are sure of success as it’s an“innovative product selling on Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce platform.”

Mr. Michael Chen, Marketing Director APAC for ALCATEL ONETOUCH, said, "We are pleased to have Mozilla as a strategic partner. With Firefox OS, we’d bring an amazing smartphone experience to more people around the world.We are looking at strengthening our smartphone retail with exclusive partnerships with online and offline retail stores.”
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Speaking on the launch, Michael Adnani, VP – Retail & Head of Brand Alliances, Flipkartsaid, “We are delighted to introduce the new ALCATEL ONETOUCH Fire C on our marketplace. With this new device, we will be expanding our portfolio of affordable smartphones and making it possible for every Indian to own a smartphone just at Rs.1990.”

Dr. Li Gong, President of Mozilla said  “It is exciting to see the launch of new Firefox OS device - Alcatel Fire C in India. Our partnership with ALCATEL ONETOUCH will provide more users with comprehensive but affordable smartphone experience.”

#Flipkart to sell Banarasi sarees for weavers

Flipkart has tied up with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT).Students of NIFT and Flipkart will work together to integrate the local weavers and artisans of Varanasi with end consumers. While Banarasi sarees will be the focus, products like leather purses, bags and laptop and iPad covers will also find place in the list of shopping items on the e-commerce site.
 

#Flipkart to sell Banarasi sarees for weavers pic.twitter.com/t6gNNbOYFO
— Press Release Watch (@PrReleaseWatch) September 4, 2014

The company's Head of Corporate Joy Bandekar said 'Students can now use Flipkart’s market intelligence and logistics expertise to develop private labels and also build on their entrepreneurial skills and we will act like an incubator.'
Flipkart's current seller base is just over 3,000 and it has an ambitious plan to take that number to 50,000 over the next year. Snapdeal has a seller base of 50,000 and Amazon, 9,000.

#Flipkart and #Myntra merger on the cards

According to the news reports published in a financial daily newspaper online retailer Flipkart ia all set to announce its merger with rival Myntra on Thursday. Neither Flipkart nor Myntra  confirmed it but sources close to the deal, in the works for months, said the agreement had been sealed and only signatures were left to be done.
The details are not known but Myntra could be valued at $300 million (Rs 1,800 crore) at least, say sources. The two companies have been negotiating to remain separate entities after a merger.
Flipkart and Myntra, both based in Bangalore, expect to together give competition to Amazon, the American online retailer that is yet to complete a year in this country. Flipkart just hit $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) in gross merchandise value (GMV). Myntra’s chief executive, Mukesh Bansal said that his company, an online fashion entity, was targeting a GMV or annual revenue of Rs 20,000 crore by 2020, up from Rs 1,200 crore now.
 

Flipkart launches Televisions; Enters Large Appliances Segment

Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace, today announced its entry into the large appliances segment with the launch of televisions.

This category will initially be available to shoppers in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore – and will soon scale up to other cities. Some of the key brands available at launch are Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic, Philips, Toshiba and Videocon.

Customers can avail of options like Cash-on-Delivery, 30 day replacement policy and In-a-Day delivery guarantee. Also, specific to this category are a number of value-added services, to be made available over time:
·         Product exchange,

·         Scheduled Delivery

·         Exhaustive Buying Guide

Commenting on the development, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, SVP - Retail, Flipkart.com, said, "Large appliances is a huge market in the country. With this launch, we look forward to delighting customers with a large selection, competitive prices and an exceptional post-order service experience. We will be adding many more products & verticals in the coming months”

Refer to this link to start shopping: http://www.flipkart.com/televisions

About Flipkart
 
Launched in October 2007, Flipkart.com is India’s leading e-commerce marketplace offering over 10 million products across 70+ categories.

Registered users – 17 million
Daily visits – 3 million
Technology enables 1.5 lakh shipments/day
Sellers on marketplace – 3000
Team strength – 10,000

Flipkart.com launches its Windows Phone shopping App

After launching the highly successful native Android and iOS apps, Flipkart.com, the leading e-commerce marketplace in India, launched its Windows Phone shopping app today.

The Flipkart.com Windows Phone app aims to make the shopping experience on Flipkart.com faster, smoother and easier for all Nokia Lumia and other Windows Phone users – allowing them to shop from a massive selection of 100% original products including mobile phones, laptops, books, shoes, watches and apparel. The app's design and user interactions have been optimized for a Windows Phone user.https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif

“With smartphones becoming more affordable and a steady rise in internet enabled devices, the number of people who are using their mobile phones to shop is increasing dramatically. Windows Phone smart devices have a large, engaged user base in India and the app lets us reach out to this substantial audience. Today’s launch will make shopping on Flipkart.com available to all Windows mobile users and let them experience the convenience of shopping on the go.” said Saran Chatterjee, VP – Products and Mobile Strategy at Flipkart.


Some of the  features of the Flipkart.com Windows Phone app are:
·         Easy navigation through different departments to find products
·         Search for products, categories or brands
·         Quickly narrow down search results using Sort and Filter functions
·         View product images up close with the zoom feature
·         Read reviews that other users have written about different products
·         Pay by Cash on Delivery, Credit/Debit Cards, EMI, NetBanking, Flipkart Wallet and Flipkart eGVs
·         Track status of your order
·         View recently browsed products and their details
·         Access your saved cart and user details by logging in through Flipkart, Facebook or Google login

A discount of Rs. 100 for purchases worth Rs. 1500 and above is available to customers who use the Flipkart Windows app for the first three days after the launch. This offer is valid till Friday, 11th April.

Flipkart completes latest round of funding at USD 360 million

India’s largest e-commerce platform Flipkart.com, has announced the closure of its latest round of funding, which had commenced in July 2013. In this phase, the company has closed an additional $160 million, adding to the $200 million it had raised from existing investors including Naspers in the first phase in July, 2013.

This phase sees participation from a world-class group of new investors including Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Sofina and Vulcan Capital alongside one of Flipkart’s earliest investors - Tiger Global. With this, the total funds raised in this round stand at $360 million – the single largest amount to be ever raised by any Indian internet business.


Talking about this development, Sachin Bansal, Co-founder and CEO of Flipkart.com said, “We are excited to work with a group of investors who strongly believe in our business strategy and are completely aligned with our long-term goals. India’s e-commerce market is at a critical inflection point and this additional capital will allow us to further expand our leadership position. “

The funds will be used to further build Flipkart’s technology and supply chain capabilities, develop the talent pool and further enhance the end-user experience.

Flipkart’s other investors include Accel Partners and ICONIQ Capital.


Flipkart Facts: 2013

·         Registered users – 1 crore

·         More than 10 lakh unique visitors every day

·         Peak items shipped in a day - 1.3 lakhs (June 2013)

·         Launched PayZippy, an online payments solution

·         New categories that we have entered (June 2012 – October 2013): Apparel, Footwear, Toys, Sun glasses , Home furnishings, Accessories, Sports and fitness, and eBooks



About Flipkart: Flipkart.com is the largest e-commerce platform in India and has been operational since 2007. Today it offers products across 17+ categories along with a slew of innovative features.



About the new investors:

Dragoneer Investment Group

Dragoneer Investment Group partners with extraordinary growth businesses.  Dragoneer seeks private and public companies that exhibit sustainable competitive differentiation, market leadership, and excellent management, and the Firm’s patient capital base allows for a long-term investment horizon.  Dragoneer and its predecessor fund investments include Facebook, Alibaba, 360Buy, Palantir, New Relic, HortonWorks, and Mercado Libre.



Morgan Stanley Investment Management

Morgan Stanley Investment Management is a U.S. registered investment adviser that, together with its investment advisory affiliates, has over  550 investment professionals around the world and $347 billion in assets under management or supervision as of June 30, 2013. Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s investment in Flipkart was made on behalf of mutual funds and other client accounts over which Morgan Stanley Investment Management exercises investment discretion.



Sofina

Sofina is a Belgium-based investment company listed on the Brussels stock exchange and a supportive partner of entrepreneurs and families managing growing companies. Sofina invests both directly and through Private Equity funds. Its geographical scope is Europe, the United States, and more recently, Asia (www.sofina.be).



Vulcan Capital

Vulcan Capital is the multi-billion dollar investment arm of Vulcan Inc., the company founded by Paul G. Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) to manage his philanthropic and business endeavors. The firm invests across all stages of corporate development including venture capital, growth equity and leveraged buyouts as well as investing in public equities and other liquid asset classes. Vulcan Capital's current portfolio spans a range of industry sectors, including technology, internet, mobile, life sciences, energy and natural resources, media and communications, and financial and information services. This investment was made from Vulcan’s new Silicon Valley based growth equity fund which is focused on making investments ranging from $10-$100 million into leading internet and technology companies, including mid- to late-stage venture capital, recaps, growth buyouts and strategic public market block investments. For more information, visit capital.vulcan.com

Brand Dialogue bags creative mandate for Flipkart India’s Brand Packaging in India

Just within a month of its entry into the Indian Market, Brand Dialogue, a European Brand Communications Company headquartered in Amsterdam and Mumbai, today bagged the mandate for providing branded packaging for Flipkart India, a leading B2B wholesale cash and carry business in India. Brand Dialogue’s partner agency Yellow Dress Retail is an expert team in Brand Packaging and will be providing the services to Flipkart India.

 Speaking about the association, Willem Woudenberg, CEO Brand Dialogue said, “Flipkart India is a pioneer in its field and we are extremely delighted to get them on board with us. It’s just been a month and this win makes us feel more welcome in the Indian market. We are here to make a difference and this comes as the beginning of our creative journey. Yellow Dress Retail (YDR) team headed by Marcel Gort is a strong mix of experienced professionals and creative talents and they will definitely add value to Flipkart India’s brand position.”

 Roy Thomas, Director, Private Labels Flipkart, said, “We have expanded our product range by launching our own label DigiFlip - offering camera bags, pen-drives, headphones, computer accessories and a lot more. Now we have got YDR on board to assist us in the brand packaging of our private label products. YDR may be new in India but their commitment and creativity goes a long way and we are confident that they will match the quality and standards that we are synonymous with.”

 Yellow Dress Retail (YDR), a specialized retail agency which creates store design, instore communication, packaging design and interactive design comes under Brand Dialogue’s umbrella name in India.  YDR will provide branded packaging for all private labels under Flipkart India and will support the brand in conceptualizing and creating private labels in various key categories.

 About Brand Dialogue

Brand Dialogue is a Dutch brand consultancy closely related to Dutch creative agencies, offering innovative branding, design and communication solutions. With offices in Delhi and Mumbai, Brand Dialogue in India comes with an international expertise which can be accessed locally. Being a multi-disciplinary working with leading Dutch design firms Brand Dialogue offers collective strength in - visual branding, internet and digital, advertising, naming, retail, packaging and product design. For more information, please visit- http://www.branddialogue.eu/

Yellow Dress Retail was founded in 2009 by Loe Limpens, Marcel Gort and Esther Koetsier. After working for many years in the retail business themselves, the trio started an agency specialized in retail design and communication. Their teams are based out of Amsterdam and Chennai (India). For more information, please visit- http://www.ydretail.com