Search This Blog

Monday, August 25, 2014

waiting infront of Nalli, Kumaran, Pothys ............... and e-buying in Flipkart....

Jokes galore about T Nagar shopping experience – be it jewellery or clothes – the benches in front of Kumaran  and Pothys will remain occupied by (im)patient husbands waiting for the wife to finish shopping and to be called in for paying ! ………… one always thought that buying is better done physically -  see, feel, share and compare … ‘e-buying’ is set to change …

Of the many e-platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, BuildaBazaar, Zepo , Kartrocket , Shopify, Powerstores, Quikr, Olx and more….. Flipkart went live in 2007 with the objective of making books easily available to anyone who had internet access. Today, they are into selling various categories including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal products, home appliances and electronics, stationery, perfumes, toys, apparels, shoes …..

In yet another hype - Flipkart and Xiaomi combined in announcing sale of limited number of devices into the market – 20,000 units at a time. There was news that in the mad spree the site crashed for a while.  In its official Facebook post, the company  announced Mi 3 accessories that are now available for pre-order. The accessories list includes flip covers in white, blue and black.  Earlier when it put on sale, within 40 minutes, Flipkart claimed the Mi 3 was out of stock.  Xiaomi’s fifth batch of smartphones that went up on sale on August 19 at 2PM sold out within mere seconds, yet again.

Flipkart  was founded by Sachin and Binny Bansal; headquartered in Bangalroe and  operates exclusively in India. It is registered in Singapore, and owned by a Singapore-based holding company.  Now they are more in news as Textiles Ministry inked a pact with them to provide an online marketing platform to handloom weavers across the country, an initiative to boost the handloom sector, empower the weavers and uplift manufacturing in the country.  Firstpost quotes Textiles Secretary S K Panda as stating "What we are starting now is only on a pilot basis, nobody is compelled to sell only to a particular agency. Our aim is to eliminate middlemen, assist the master weaver... After a period of 3 to 6 months we will go for bidding". Textiles Minister Santosh Gangwar, who was present on the occasion, emphasised that the focus of this association should be to help weavers and weaver entrepreneurs to produce products in tune with the buyer requirements and grow them significantly so that they may become manufacturers not only at a local but also at a national level.

Through this exclusive agreement, Flipkart will provide weavers in India an online marketing platform, infrastructural support in data analytics and customer acquisition to help them get remunerative prices for their products and scale up their business. According to the report, Flipkart will charge  weavers  3 to 4% commission on sale. This kind of a coordinated effort has been planned and executed for the first time with Flipkart for handloom weavers which will bridge the missing linkages of market intelligence, market access and logistics and help the Indian weavers in getting remunerative prices for their products," the Textiles Ministry said.

The weavers will sell their products under their brand name and evolve as an entrepreneur selling his products directly to buyers across the country without stepping out of their workplace. The Data analytics and market intelligence provided by Flipkart will help the weavers focus only on producing better saleable product ranges. This in turn will help them plan their production and inventory and expand their business.

Do you have a Flipkart ID and have you so far made on-line purchases ?

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

25th Aug 2014.

No comments:

Post a Comment