Flipkart eCommerce marketing strategies 2016 – I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital business strategy. From startups and small businesses to large local businesses, their focus on the customer, testing market opportunities made available by digital technology and their focus on testing and analysis to improve results. This digital marketing strategies works for 2015, 2016, 2017

About Flipkart.com

Flipkart is World’s top 10 most visited E-commerce website in India with regards to traffic.  Multiple Payment method is available for it’s customers to make Payment easier. Fastest growing e-commerce website in India.

Flipkart started back in 2007 with online book selling. After that it entered the telecommunication category by launching mobile phones. Since then it has rapidly grown to other verticals. The reason for Flipkart being so popular is due its innovative features like cash on delivery where after the customer gets the delivery of the good he/she can check the good and make the payment on cash.

The Story Behind ” FLIPKART.COM” marketing strategies 2016

There was the huge risk taken by both the Bansal’s ” Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal “. (Started with selling of books ). They both got a high profile job in the worlds biggest e-commerce website named Amazon. Leaving Amazon to start their own company with just Rs 4 Lakhs involved a huge risk as there was no guarantee that their idea would Succeed or not. It was a result of risk taking only that today Flipkart generates 1.5 cr a day.

The online store has spread to multiple categories namely they are Books, music, mobiles, computers, cameras ,home and kitchen applications, TV and home theatre systems, Personal and healthcare products and stationary items as well.

I aim to keep this case study up-to-date for readers who may be interested. In it we look at Flipkart’s background, revenue model and sources for the latest business results.

We can also learn from their approach to digital marketing since they use digital marketing efficiently across all customer communications touch points in our RACE marketing planning framework:

• Reach: Flipkart’s initial business growth based on detailed approach to SEO and AdWords targeting millions of keywords.
• Act: Creating a clear simple experiences through testing and learning.
• Convert: Using personalisation to make relevant recommendations and a clear checkout process that many now imitate.
• Engage:

Their focus on customer experience, “Customer Obsession” as they call it  is shown by the way they consistently outperform other retailers in their ACSI customer satisfaction rating too.

Experiments and more experiments!

Flipkart business and revenue model

I recommend anyone studying Flipkart checks the latest Flipkart revenue and business strategies from their SEC filings / Investor relations. The annual filings to give a great summary of eBay business and revenue models.

A good summary of the latest business model initiatives is always available in the latest Flipkart annual report summary. The latest report includes a great vision for Digital Agility (reprinted from 2014 in their latest annual report) showing testing of business models that many businesses don’t yet have.

 

Flipkart performs exceptionally efficiently measured against revenue per visitor, which is one of the key measures for any commercial website, whether it’s a media site, search engine, social network or a transactional retailer or offers travel or financial services. Of course profit per user would be quite different due to the significantly lower costs of other .coms like Facebook and Google.

Flipkart Competition

In its SEC (2014) filing Flipkart describes the environment for our products and services as ‘intensely competitive’. It views its main current and potential competitors as:

• 1) physical-world retailers, catalog retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors and manufacturers of our products, many of which possess significant brand awareness, sales volume, and customer bases, and some of which currently sell, or may sell, products or services through the Internet, mail order, or direct marketing;
• (2) Other online E-commerce sites;
• (3) A number of indirect competitors, including media companies, Web portals, comparison shopping websites, and Web search engines, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers; and
• (4) Companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development; third-party fulfillment and customer-service.

It believes the main competitive factors in its market segments include “selection, price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us on behalf of third-party sellers”.

For services offered to business and individual sellers, additional competitive factors include the quality of our services and tools, their ability to generate sales for third parties we serve, and the speed of performance for our services.

FLIPKART.COM BUSINESS OBJECTIVES: 

To increase Traffic and boost sales and revenue through  integration of Mobile Apps, Display, Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization.

STRATEGY ADOPTED: 

Google Adwords

PPC Search ad – Category based text ads.

Display – Products offers based ad images.

Gmail – Content / Topic based Text ads.

Keyword Targeted – FLIPKART.

Paid ad rank – 6 or 7.

Overall Paid Search Performance – Good.

Remarketing

Remarketing activates if customer visit site and Clicks any display / Search ad.

Succesful Brand Campaigns

” Fair Tale “

” No Kidding, No Worries “

” Shopping ka Naya Address “

“Shop Anytime, Anywhere “

” Big Billion Day “, ” Singles Day “.

TV Commercial Strategy

1.  The objective is to build the brand as a verb for Shopping.
2. Target Biggest event of the year i.e IPL T20 2014
3. Total 29 ads released Since 2011
4. Portraying Kids as Adults in ads gives higher brand recall.
5. Ads Targeted as Pan India Shoppers of all generation.
6. Ads aimed to Popularise the brand as a verb.
7. Testimonial based Creative Campaigns to demystify the fear of Online Shopping experience.
8. Mobile App downloads TV ad to increase m-commerce Value.
9. Launching Campaigns i.e ” The Big Billion Day “

 Facebook Strategy

1. Category Focused FB page i.e books, gaming, fashion etc, which is for building engagement with fans.
2. Deals and Offers based FB Page which is for customer acquisition.
3. Likes- 3.3 million
4. Seasons to Festivals or Birthday based Cover Photos.
5. Updates on new Products and Customer queries.
6. Response on customer Complaint is average and Inconsistent.
7. Running Contests / Gamification.
8. Exclusive customer tab for support.
9. Avg Response per Post 40-50
10. Focus is on Customer acquisition and engagement.

Twitter Strategy

1. Follower -160 K
2. Updates on new Product, Offers and Discounts using appealing Videos and Images.
3. Tech @ Flipkart exclusive channel on tech updates.
4. Running Product / Services based contest Like Flipkart Frist, AcerA1 on Flipkart.
5. Avg 2-3 Products offers / launch based post per day basis.
6. Flipkart Support Exclusive Channel on queries Solution.
7. Flipkart Offers Special offers based channel.
8. 24*7 Customer Service Channel.
9. Real-time Connect.
10. Response on the query is on real time.

YouTube  Strategy

1. It does not have its own channel.
2. It Executes lots of Youtube Campaigns. i.e Search Page, Display ad, Video ad etc.
3. Total 29 Videos Uploaded.
4. Total Video Views- 1.4 million

Pinterest Strategy

1. Deals/ Offers based Pinterest.
2. 8 Boards and 290 Followers.

Google + Strategy

1. Followers- 500 k
2. 1-2 Post on Per day basis.
3. Less focus on deals / offers.
4. More focus on Company Updates, Product Launch Updates besides, Festive /season/customer mood based posts.
5. Focus is on more on engagement and brand building rather customer acquisition.
6. Interaction / Engagement with the follower is the area of improvement.

Content Marketing Strategy

1. It has its own Official Blog.
2. Blog page gives updates about company, industry, tech etc.
3. It has its own unique tech-focused blog too.
4. PR release page also exists.
5. PR release about company info, events, exclusive product service updates.

Mobile Marketing Strategy

1. Mobile Optimized website is available.
2. Mobile app on all Platforms( iOS, Android, Windows)
3. 5 Million downloads, 4.3 rating, responding to each negative review.
4. 25% sales via mobile.
5. Campaigns aiming towards Product Launch, Acquisition, Engagement and retention.
6. Mobile remarketing does not seem to be Part of Strategy.
7. Mobile Weekend offers to target repeat Purchase.

Affiliate Marketing Strategy

1. Earn up to 15 % for each Purchase on the website.
2. Payment via Gift Voucher and EFT Options.
3. Referral Payout for each month/Category is Communicated.
4. Payment made 45 days after the month of Sale.
5. After lower Commission Compared to Competition.
6. Various reports are released to help Affiliates.

Brand Association and Acquisition

1. Flipkart + OLX joint Marketing Campaign.
2. Flipkart + Acquired Myntra- Online Fashion Portal.
3. Tie Ups for Exclusive Electronic Launches i.e Xiomi, MSI gaming Laptops, Samsung Galaxy s5 mini, MOTO G etc.
4. Recently, Company has tied up with spice for exclusive Launch of their Android One-based low-cost Phone.

E-commerce in India is a budding market. What makes it interesting is that it is budding as well as blooming at the same time. There is a huge population without access to internet and still rely on brick and mortar stores. On the other hand, for the 5% percent of the population who actually go and buy online, the competition is getting harder.

I personally liked the flipkart’s home page than amazon/snapdeal/infibeam. But, When I decide to buy a particular product. I explore all the websites and pick the deal that is worth to me (Price – Shipping – Return policy). Is this sale targeting me? Yes. Is this sale targeting a person who has never bought online. Yes. (With the amount of advertisements on TV)

This serves a variety of purposes.

1. It makes people talk about you. No publicity is negative publicity. Yet, I’ll think twice before buying on flipkart on a normal day, however.

2. The talk reaches the masses who aren’t in the market yet but are your potential targets.

3. A planned sale like this gives you a ton of data. Brilliant data. What the products people are interested in? (Remember the sale is advertised. So you might have prepared your shopping list in advance). How does people navigate from their wishlist product (Say you wanted a Moto E. Do you move to Nokia X the moment you see an offer on it). Along with this a thousands of insights can be obtained.