Flipkart Expands Travel Offerings With Bus Booking Services

Aiming to meet the needs of rising number of commuters in the inter-city travel space, ecommerce giant Flipkart has rolled out bus services on its app.

Through partnerships with multiple state transport corporations and private aggregators, Flipkart will provide customers access to 10 lakh bus connections, covering over 25,000 routes across India. 

This expands on the existing flight and hotel booking services already offered through Flipkart Travel.

The platform is providing bus bookings without any convenience fee, along with offers through supercoins redemption up to INR 50 and a 24/7 voice helpline.

“The addition of buses to Flipkart’s wide array of services marks a significant milestone in our journey towards becoming the ultimate destination for all consumer needs including travel. With Flipkart’s strong presence in tier-II and III markets, this move has enabled us to provide customers with a convenient and reliable solution for their inter-city travel needs,” said Ajay Veer Yadav, senior vice president, Flipkart.

“As a commitment to our customers, we will continue to serve them with value-added facilities, simplifying their travel experiences in the future,” Yadav added.

It is pertinent to note that Flipkart faces stiff competition from  redBus, which boasts a customer base of around 20 Mn users.

The rise in travel demand has also led to a growth in bus travel across India.

Earlier last month, a report by redBus said that India’s bus industry expects a 200% increase in seat bookings due to the development of more expressways.

This comes close on the heels of Flipkart-owned online travel aggregator Cleartrip launching a new product, Out of Office (OOO), marking its foray into the corporate travel space.

OOO is a corporate travel booking tool designed for small, medium and large enterprises. Cleartrip competes against the likes of Ixigo, EaseMyTrip, MakeMyTrip and Ibibo.

It is also to be mentioned that Flipkart made its strides into the travel sector with the launch of its hotel booking service called Flipkart Hotels in 2022. 

Just a month ago, Flipkart’s marketplace arm also secured funding of INR 924 Cr ($111 Mn) in two parts from its related entities based in Singapore.

As per a recent report, Flipkart is likely to make its foray into the quick commerce space to take on the likes of Zepto, Zomato’s Blinkit, and Swiggy’s Instamart.

The marketplace arm’s operating revenue zoomed 42% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 14,845.8 Cr while loss declined 9% YoY to INR 4,026.5 Cr in FY23