With An Aim To Promote Assisted Commerce, Flipkart Plans To Go Offline

Online marketplace Flipkart reportedly plans to open offline stores in small Indian cities.

The online-to-offline move on Flipkart’s part comes as an initiative to promote assisted ecommerce, thereby attracting more customers, according to a sources close to the development. With this plan, “Flipkart is seeking to double its current user base at a time when the broader Indian ecommerce market faces stagnation,” the source added.

Commenting on the development, Ravi Garikipati, Chief Engineer, Flipkart told LiveMint, “Basically we want to have some sort of a connect with the offline world as well—this is one of our upcoming initiatives, but it’s not something that’s out there yet. As we are looking ahead and trying to grow the market and win over the next 3-5 years, there are a few things we need to do.”

The proposed offline stores will be set up in the remote parts of the country and will enable Indian users to access Flipkart products, even with a limited access to the internet.

“A lot of folks are still comfortable going to the offline world and doing their (shopping). We’ve also seen in some pockets that while people spend some time on their commerce apps, they still feel comfortable going offline and getting the touch-and-feel experience and talking to local vendors. So, we are working on this whole concept called assisted commerce, it’s just a concept at this point,” he added.

As per an official statement, Amazon India has also entered into a partnership with StoreKing, which has a presence in more than 10,000 rural outlets across south India. StoreKing offers  more than 1,000 products via its tablets installed at retail outlets and kirana (grocery) stores in rural areas. It also provides product information and shopping services in regional languages.

In order to thrive in the Indian ecommerce segment, Flipkart has launched a lot of initiatives this year to entice customers and capitalise on the market share including no cost EMI, buy-now-pay-later schemes,UPI-based payments app, PhonePe, and Flipkart Assured.

Earlier last month, it also claimed to have crossed the 100 Mn registered customers mark, after it hit the 75 Mn mark in March 2016. It also claimed to be the first ecommerce company in India to do so.

Ecommerce players like Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal introduced a slew of services in the run up to the festive season with an aim to capitalise on the market share. Snapdeal launched a new brand identity,‘Unbox Zindagi’ and also introduced a new logo. Amazon India has claimed itself to be the winner of this festive season with the maximum revenue generated in its five day sale extravaganza.

The development was reported by Mint.