Flipkart WiRED 5.

0 | Campus case challenge | Business

Flipkart, which started operations in 2007 by selling books, is today the largest e-commerce player in
India — with approximately 250 million subscribers operating across 80+ major categories. With the
internet base expanding in India, Flipkart is eyeing this opportunity to come up with many new initiatives
to ensure top-of-the-mind brand recall for online shoppers. Customer First is one of the core values at
Flipkart since inception and here are some of the initiatives that the company has experimented with to
increase customer engagement and mindshare:

2010 Cash-on-Delivery Service

2011 30 Day Replacement Policy

2012 Fashion & Lifestyle Category Launch

2013 Launched Marketplace & Same Day Delivery

2014 The First ‘Big Billion Day’ Sale

2015 Flipkart Lite - Mobile Focus

2016 No Cost EMI

2017 Private Labels & Expanding Categories

(Large Appliances, Furni-sure, Refurbished business)

2018
Grocery, Shopper Audience Platform (tie-up with Hotstar),

2019
Flipkart Plus Buy Now Pay Later, 2Gud, Supermart, Supercoins,

2020 Quick, 2GUD influencer commerce, Leap, Flipkart Wholesale

2021 Flipkart Camera, Shopsy

Context:

The Big Billion Days (TBBD) is India’s leading sale event and at the forefront of growth and innovation for
Flipkart. Over time, TBBD has evolved into a phenomenon with a high consumer recall in not only the
e-commerce ecosystem but for the entire retail market as well. It spearheads the onset of the larger
festive buying season and creates a step-jump in all relevant indices for Flipkart (GMV, Units, Traffic, New
Customers, etc.) To share some sense of scale, TBBD generally results in a more than 10X spike in
revenue, more than 5X spike in units and more than 3X spike in customers over a normal period.

Problem Statement:

While the recall for TBBD is extremely high and it’s generally (and rightly) perceived as an event with
astounding offerings and discounts, it lacks relevance for many customers who are new to e-commerce
and/or are less-engaged customers. These sets of customers see TBBD more as a transactional event,
with limited engagement and/or linkage to the larger festive season. Some of the customer verbatims
are as follows:
“Poor quality/ clearance stock”
“Old/ refurbished products”
“Event to Stock Up”
“Only about deals”
“They must be inflating prices and then giving discounts”
“I’m here just for the offers”
“No offers, then no BBD”

Key Deliverables for Idea Brief Submission Round:

Given the current competitive landscape (both offline and online) and the evolved customer behavior
(COVID induced changes in shopping habits, etc.), recommend interventions that enable a step-change
in, both, customer experience and perception in not more than 3 slides (excluding the cover slide and
aneexures):

1. For New User/ Non Engaged Customers: Migrate the perception of TBBD merely being a big sale
event with untrustworthy discounts and deals to a more evolved cultural event with deeper
 engagement used to experience and explore the world of e-commerce, increasing the relevance
of Flipkart overall through TBBD in the process.

2. For Existings/Engaged Customers: Build frenzy and excitement through novelty by discovery of
new categories augmented as an experiential shopping experience with innovative new
launches, unique assortment and partnerships.

Guidelines for the approach:

● Use a combination of global benchmarking, understanding of Indian customer landscape, secondary

and primary research to build your point of view
● Keep the context and compatibility of Flipkart in mind while benchmarking with global companies.
● Fully understand Flipkart’s existing innovations for these customers (gamification, different type of
offer/deal constructs, etc.), and factor in your understanding in the recommendations being made
● Implementation timeline should not exceed 1-2 years