Flipkart was once the go to site for any online shopping. But I guess the Indian e-commerce ecosystem has come a long way from there. Today you have a dozen operators in this scene. Its actually nothing new in India, once you are successful a lot of try to replicate it albeit they do it better.
Either way, the biggest benefits that used to exist with Flipkart are gone. They no longer ship free for purchases less than 500 rupees, so spending an extra 50 when you can drive down to the nearest bookstore makes no sense. They have also become famous when it comes to cancelling orders the very next day you ordered, if the price of the goods you ordered went up.
In fact I guess Flipkart is now large transforming itself into an ebay kind of site, I guess that's the way they will eventually go.
Which are the sites that you think do it better? I have used a bunch of other websites, but IMO from aesthetics to tracking Flipkart is way better. However, there are things I find cheaper on SnapDeal.
Free shipping for less than Rs 500 is an unreasonable expectation. It will cost more than 50 bucks (and a lot of time) to drive down given petrol prices. Finally, the nearest book store may not be stocking what you need.
Eventually, Flipkart will become an Amazon. They seem to be following the exact same path.
Free shipping for a low priced item isn't sustainable. It's there to get traction. That's what amazon.in is doing right now. There's nothing wrong with offering free shipping above a certain threshold (like Amazon.com has a $25 threshold).
I don't think the biggest benefit of Flipkart was free shipping. And they have grown far beyond books. Amongst the e-commerce players in India, they are in the "better" category.
Actually free shipping, and cash on delivery are two things that helped Indian e-commerce scene gain some customers.
And spending for shipping will be non starter in India, people here bargain for a rupee or two for 1kg of potatoes with the local vegetable push cart vendor who comes right in front of your home to sell things. And we are expecting them to pay up 50 rupees for just showing up.
And its not just vegetable push cart vendors. You have clothes salesmen, pickle vendors, biscuit vendors and what not. Who just just go from street to street trying to sell stuff. Our people are culturally trained to forget giving them a extra shipping fee, but rather bargain for a lower price.
You are trying undo centuries of free shipping, and cash on delivery culture here.
Books work fine for e-commerce, because books are what they are. You read reviews on the internet and buy them, it doesn't matter what's inside as knowing that by reading is the whole point of the book. Its like a movie.
A mobile phone, tablet, laptop, clothes, glasses etc are totally different. I will never buy anything such, unless I see them or at least get a real feel of it. The Indian customers are very sensitive to this, try to convince an average Indian family to simply buy a thing online, without even seeing it once. Most won't, and for a good reason.
> Actually free shipping, and cash on delivery are two things that helped Indian e-commerce scene gain some customers.
Exactly. they "helped". It's like you handout freebies when you launch a new product so that people can get a "taste" before they commit to buy the whole package. All these incentives are there to get people hooked on to buying online. There's nothing wrong with this approach.
You need to step out of that rock if you feel that Indians aren't buying online. Brick & Mortar mobile stores could be one of the earliest casualty of e-commerce.
Who is better? I have used SnapDeal, BuyThePrice ( now merged with tradus) and lots of others, and Flipkart is THE best. Their website is pretty good as well and search is great. Not saying that there aren't issues with Flipkart, like cancelling items if price goes up, but they are still way ahead of others. Flipkart is the Amazon of India.
Either way, the biggest benefits that used to exist with Flipkart are gone. They no longer ship free for purchases less than 500 rupees, so spending an extra 50 when you can drive down to the nearest bookstore makes no sense. They have also become famous when it comes to cancelling orders the very next day you ordered, if the price of the goods you ordered went up.
In fact I guess Flipkart is now large transforming itself into an ebay kind of site, I guess that's the way they will eventually go.