E-Commerce Project Avni Sampat TYBMS-B 7839

Index
Topics
What is e-commerce?

Page no.
1

About Flipkart

How does Flipkart works?

Limitations & Recommendations

13

What is E-Commerce?
The Internet has created a new economic ecosystem, the ecommerce marketplace, and it has become the virtual main street of the world. Providing a quick and convenient way of exchanging goods and services both regionally and globally, e-commerce has boomed. Today, e-commerce has grown into a huge industry with US online retail generating $175B in revenues in 2007, with consumer-driven (B2C) online transactions impacting industries from travel services to consumer electronics, from books and media distribution to sports & fitness. With more than 70% of Americans using the Internet on a daily basis for private and/or business use and the rest of the world also beginning to catch on, e-commerce's global growth curve is not likely to taper off anytime soon. However, the US recession has taken its toll on online sales. Although early 2008 estimates by Forrester Research were very strong with 2008 revenues upwards of $204B (a 17% growth rate), 2008 holiday sales showed the first decrease in the last 7 years. Research by ComScore shows sales declining by 1% for the first 49 days of the holiday season. In the last decade, many startup e-commerce companies have rapidly stolen market share from traditional retailers and service providers, pressuring these established traditional players to deploy their own commerce websites or to alter company strategy in retaliation. This effect is most pronounced in travel services and consumer electronics. According to comScore, online leisure travel bookings reached about $51B in 2005, or 44% of all online sales, which were around $122B in the same year. Roughly 30% of all travel bookings currently occur online. Consumer electronics, which includes the purchase of digital cameras, mobile phones, and home PC's, accounted for nearly $26B of worldwide e-commerce sales occurring in 2006, according to the

NPD Group. As traditional brick and mortar firms continue to lose market share to e-commerce players, they will likely see continued declines in their revenues, operating margins, and profits. It is important to note that most e-commerce players are at a competitive advantage to retailers. They have lower operating expenses and better inventory management due to operating in a virtual commerce environment. For example, Amazon.com (AMZN) has revenue per employee of nearly $850k while its retail counterpart, Best Buy (BBY), generates revenue per employee of only $270k. Clearly, e-commerce vendors will have the most to gain if they successfully disrupt retail customer acquisition, disintermediate distributors/resellers, and under-price retail establishments. As a consequence of e-commerce vendor gains, financial transaction processors and parcel shipping companies are among ancillary vendors who will gain.

About Flipkart
Flipkart is an Indian electronic commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Established in 2007, it is the largest online bookstore in India. Recently it started to sell mobile phones, CD's, DVD's, video games and much more. Flipkart went live in 2007 with the objective of making books easily available to anyone who had internet access. Today, flipkart is present across various categories including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal products, home appliances and electronics and still counting! With over 11.5 million book titles, 10 different categories, more than 1 million registered users and sale of 20000 items a day, flipkart is one of the leading e-commerce players in the country. Flipkart was established in October 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. Both are alumni of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and worked for Amazon.com before quitting and founding their own company. Initially they used word of mouth marketing and social networking websites to popularize their company. A few months later, the company sold its first book on flipkart.com John Woods' Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. Within two years through word of mouth of their services, Flipkart became one of the top 100 Indian sites and was credited for being India's largest online bookseller with over 7 million titles on offer. Flipkart broke even in March 2008 and claims to have had at least 100% growth every quarter since its founding. The store started with selling books and in 2010 branched out to selling CDs, DVDs, mobile phones, cameras and other electronic gadgets

Initially funded by the Bansals themselves with 4 Lakh, Flipkart has since then raised two rounds of funding from venture capital funds Accel India (in 2009) and Tiger Global Management (up to the tune of US$10 million) (in 2010). In December 2010, Flipkart acquired WeRead, a social book discovery tool from Lulu, a US-based on-demand publishing firm. The stated goal was to give Flipkart a social recommendation platform for buyers to make informed decisions based on recommendations from people within their social network. Flipkart's reported sales were 4 Crores (40 Million) in FY 200809, 20 Crores in FY 2009-10 and 75 Crores for FY 201011. On average, Flipkart sells nearly 10 products per minute and is aiming at generating a revenue of 1 billion US$ by 2015. The company's headquarters is located in Bangalore's Koramangala neighborhood. Flipkart has offices, warehouses and customer service centers across India. Warehouses are located in the following cities, often near airports.

Bangalore Chennai Delhi Mumbai Kolkata

How does Flipkart work?

The companys success is largely due to their obsession with providing the customers a memorable online shopping experience. Be it their path-breaking services like Cash on Delivery, a 30-day replacement policy, EMI options, free shipping - and of course the great prices that flipkart offers. Then there's the dedicated Flipkart delivery team that works round the clock to personally make sure packages reach on time. For now they're present in 13 cities, with plans underway to spread to many others. The different phrases to place an order are: 1. Email login:

Its not compulsory to have an account with flipkart, customers can transact even by entering their email address.

2. Shipping Address:

3. Order Summary:

4. Payment Options:

Flipkart offer multiple methods to make payments for your order: Credit Card & Debit Card (including American Express), Net Banking, E-Gift Voucher and Cash on Delivery. All Credit/Debit card details remain confidential and private. Flipkart and our trusted payment gateways use SSL encryption technology to protect your card information. There are absolutely no hidden charges when you make a purchase with Flipkart. We offer free delivery if the order is Rs. 100 or over, otherwise you will be charged an additional Rs. 30

for delivery. The prices listed for all items are final and allinclusive. The prices you see on our product pages are exactly what you pay for the item. Cash-on-Delivery (C-o-D) is an alternate method of purchasing from us, other than Online (By Credit/Debit card and Net banking) and Cheque/DD/Money Order. In the C-o-D payment terms or C-o-D service, you pay at the time of the actual delivery, rather than paying in advance. The maximum order value for a Co-D payment is Rs. 50,000. It's strictly a cash-only payment method; e-Gift Vouchers or Store Credit cannot be used for C-o-D orders. E-Gift Vouchers or Store Credit cannot be used for C-o-D orders. Only Cash Payment is made at the time of delivery. Flipkart accept all VISA, MasterCard and AmEx both Indian and International. Customers will need to key in their 16-digit Credit/Debit Card number and the 3 digit CVV Code (Card Verification Value - found on the back of the card) and complete the payment flow. All Credit/Debit card details remain confidential and private. Flipkart and our trusted payment gateways use SSL encryption technology to protect your card information. Flipkart's Credit Card EMI scheme is a payment option available for all orders that have a minimum value of Rs. 4000, where you will be required to pay the amount of your order in a specified number of installments. Flipkart offer two schemes: 3 months and 6 months. The minimum order value for EMI eligibility is Rs.4000/-. Only ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank Credit Cards are eligible for the EMI payment option. The 3-month EMI scheme is interest free. However, a flat EMI processing fee of Rs. 500/- is charged for the 6-month scheme.

Customers can pay through E-gift vouchers. E-gift vouchers and unused portions of E-gift vouchers expire 1 year from the date of issue. E-gift vouchers cannot be redeemed for Cash or Credit BUT ARE transferable.Flipkart.com is not responsible if E-gift vouchers is lost, stolen or used without permission. Order Status- Customers can review the status and other information of all your orders, whether pending or fulfilled, that you have placed with Flipkart.com. To check the status of your pending orders, click on the My Account link in the top right of any page on our store. This will take you to your My Account page, where you can click on the My Orders link to view the status of all orders. To view the status of a specific order, click on the Order Number. After your order is shipped out from our warehouse, we will send you a mail with the shipping details. Delivery- Items which are labeled 'In Stock' on their respective product pages, are stocked in our various warehouses and usually takes 2-3 business days to reach our customers. Items which we will need to procure or import, are labeled 'Imported' on their respective product pages - the delivery of these items can vary between 2 and 4 weeks. Products which you can pre-book, and are labeled as 'Forthcoming' are dispatched on the release date of the particular product - release dates are mentioned on the product page. 3 day price guarantee for mobiles- Due to the nature of product, there may be fluctuations in price from time to time. If you have purchased a phone from us and you see a drop in price in the 72 hours following your purchase, do bring it to our notice. The difference in amount will be refunded to you.

30 Day Replacement Guarantee All products sold at Flipkart.com are covered under our 30 Day Replacement Guarantee. Notify us of any problems, damages or defects within 30 days from the date of delivery, and we will issue a brand new replacement to you at no extra cost. In order to get a defective item replaced Contact Customer Care via the Contact Us page or call us on (080) 4352 6600, within 30 days from the date of delivery. The defective product or part will be recalled and a replacement will be shipped immediately. Cancellation of an order- If you cancel your order before your product has shipped; flipkart will refund the entire amount. If the cancellation is after your product has shipped, you can do one of the following: 1. If your product has shipped but has not yet been delivered, contact Customer Support and inform them of the same. 2. If you received the product, it will be eligible for replacement, only in cases where there are defects found with the product. Please refer to the 30 Day Replacement Guarantee above. All Electronics are Insured against theft and damages incurred during transit. If you receive a package that is open or looks to have been tampered with, do not accept it. Contact Flipkart Customer Care on (080) 4352 6600, and we will have the issue quickly resolved.

Limitations & Recommendations

1. Since it is a smaller company new products take a little longer to be introduced on the website when compared to bigger e-commerce giants

2. Due to their offices only in selected locations in India, the deliveries are delayed due to this.

3 .No wide range of products

4. No international delivery

Thus it is recommended that for the growth of company and maximization of profits, it has to establish more number of warehouses, so that there is no delay in delivery. In order to challenge the giant websites in business, it is necessary to start shipping the orders internationally and adapt to globalization.

Initially Flipkart.com was established only to sell books but recently it has started dealing in products like mobiles, DVDs, CDs, and Games etc. It has to expand the product line even further.

Inspite of the limitations, flipkart is a trusted site as there is no bad publicity of it since it was founded. The increase in sales itself show us the potential growth of the company.

Thank you!!