Dear Flipkart, Please Stop Taking Indian Customers For Granted.
As my Lumia breathed its last breath almost after 3 years of rigorous use, I was on a hunt to buy a new smartphone which falls into my budget. My stars were also aligned in a great position. As I was on my hunt for my new smartphone, Flipkart announced its “The Apple Fest” on their website, people like me, who has the only way to buy an apple device is by selling off their kidney (pun intended), went into a frenzy. People like me, who can afford apple products only in their dreams, is coming to a reality.
Impressed by the move that Flipkart had taken, and reading articles elsewhere on the internet, I was confident of owning an apple device in the end. Articles compared the prices and the discount of the particular phone model has. iPhone as low as Rs 4999 (iPhone 5s) is a dream come true for every Indian, my thought initially. But those dreams were crushed when the reality stuck me. To get that Rs 15,000 discount, I have to exchange my old iPhone 6 to gain that offer. Yes! You read that right, an iPhone 6 for an older iPhone 5s.
Holding back to lost customer:
After losing their customer to amazon.in, Flipkart, from time-to-time, come up with some sales to hold on to the customer base they have left with. After the big billion days fiasco, I always turn up to amazon. This includes two prominent reasons
Fake discount and
Fake prices
Yes! These are the foundation on which Flipkart is standing. They don’t actually drop the price, but increase the price on the day of the sale and sell it at the same price they were selling before.
Now, Flipkart has come up with its 4 days apple fest, in which they’re offering apple products at “discounted” prices. Let’s compare how much they are discounted with its rival, amazon.in
With not much excitement, I headed to Flipkart site and went on to scroll on to every offer that if I can grab that apple device into my hand. Distressed and dishartened, the hype they had for the fest was only to be seen in the papers, reality is different. So, I thought to do quick comparison with Flipkart’s rival Amazon. And here what I found out.
1) Apple Iphone 5s (16gb, space grey)
Even amazon is selling at a lower price than Flipkart, even though Flipkart is having a fest on their site.
2) Apple iphone 6s (32gb, space grey)
Again, amazon wins
3) Apple iphone 7 (32gb, gold)
Slight increase in price but not that much, though.
Flipkart, then and now:
In the initial years of Flipkart, it was good. Delivery use to be 2-3 days max, no delivery charges (on orders more than Rs 300, now raised to Rs 500), and discounts was also pretty good. As time passes, services begin to deteriorate, deliveries use to take time and other.
The Big Billion Days Fiasco and the entry of Amazon.in:
As the Flipkart was doing well with their business another e-commerce giant, Amazon takes an entry into the Indian market to try their luck in the Indian online marketplace. Amazon entry as Amazon.in in India has seriously dented the Flipkart shares, as the emergence of the amazon in just 5 years, as compared to 10 years of Flipkart’s, shows the heavy turn-around of the customer to amazon’s side.
To do deal with this, and to regain their lost customer to stand by their side, Flipkart in 2014 come up with the idea that their top official thought would probably blow amazon’s share. The idea of Big Billion Days. From here, the big billion days was born, in a quest to revamp how India shops.
We all know how the Flipkart’s first Big Billion Days was. Most of the things went out of stock in less than 2hrs when the sale went live. People bought items just for the sake of it and orders were not being placed. Being a customer, I didn’t expect a company, which is then become a perfect brand in India, would come up with such a miscalculated and mismanaged sale. The big billion days was more like a fiasco which the authorities sitting at the highest level of the company haven’t accepted their failure in public forum. People were angered, unsatisfied and above all, the company lost its loyal customers.
BY: Ananya Pandit