With India turning more and more digital in every aspect, this is further increasing the approach of people towards e-commerce and now the business of e-commerce platforms in India is accelerating its business and its revenues on the large scale. If we look at the e-commerce giants in India, it is Amazon and Flipkart that comes first to your mind. These two have occupied the topmost position in the race of e-commerce platforms.
Amazon and Flipkart are giving tough competition to each other, back since they were launched in India. Both of these giants follow frenzy tactics in order to enhance their businesses, by giving attractive discounts, also personalized services to their customers to enhance their customer base in India. But nowadays if we see both Flipkart and Amazon are moving gradually from the e-commerce towards the retail, in order to further penetrate and increase their customer base in the population.
| TABLE OF CONTENTS EVOLUTION OF AMAZON AND ITS ADVENT IN INDIA HOW FLIPKART CAME INTO EXISTENCE AND ITS POPULARITY IN INDIA SHIFT INTO THE RETAIL SECTOR |
EVOLUTION OF AMAZON AND ITS ADVENT IN INDIA
Amazon which is the American multinational e-commerce company, this company launched its first website in India in 2012. Initially, it was launched as a website that was meant for customers to compare prices online but did not sell its products directly.
Then later when it started, came up with selling only books, TV shows and movies. But slowly and gradually as it was picked up among the people it, became like a third party retailer and acted as an intermediary between the retailer and the customer, where the retailers could sell their goods by using Amazon site.
Now we can see the further penetration of Amazon into the retail sector, and it is turning out to be rather impressive and successful due to the popularity gained by it over a period of time.
HOW FLIPKART CAME INTO EXISTENCE AND ITS POPULARITY IN INDIA
The foundation of Flipkart was laid in India back in 2007, and with time this Indian e-commerce giant emerged as a grave competition to many multinational e-commerce companies. This was co-founded by Sachin Bansal and it is based in Bengaluru. The success of this company in e-commerce business can be measured by the fact that it overtook Myntra and Jabong as its subsidiaries. And one of the popular digital payment apps in India, known as PhonePe is also another subsidiary of Flipkart.
This website has been expanding its customer base in the country from the very beginning since it was launched. But now we can notice a swift move of this company further into the retail sector, for increasing their businesses.
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SHIFT INTO THE RETAIL SECTOR
As the internet services in India have become rather cheap and also cost-effective, it has led to the digital inclusion of people in the country and this is one of the most important factors for the success and for the continuous growth of such e-commerce companies in India.
Both Amazon and Flipkart give tough competition to each other when it comes in respect of India. Where Flipkart is being backed by Walmart and substantiating its growth also in the retail sector, according to the Times of India, in July 2019, Flipkart launched its first offline furniture store in Bangalore to showcase furniture from 9 different brands. If we look into the strategy followed by Flipkart, in this case, we find that to begin with, a furniture store in the retail sector was a perfect choice because the locals of India still give more preference to the offline purchase of the furniture like stuff rather than looking into the online purchase. This is the reason why other online furniture selling brands like Pepperfry have also started switching from the online mode to offline mode.
On the other hand, Amazon is not directly stepping into the opening of stores in India but is rather acquiring stakes in those which are already popular among the locals of the country like Future Group-owned Big Bazaar. Also a few months back Amazon launched its first Amazon Fresh Store in India.
This e-commerce shopping is becoming more and more indispensable in human life with time. It has also become essential for these companies to enter into the retail sector, in order to protect their interests which may be undermined after the New e-commerce policy comes into existence in the country.