Saving Private Flipkart • Hacker News Board

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#21

Post by rajeevk » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 8:50 AM UTC

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

Same with me. I almost stopped looking/searching at FK. It is either not available at FK or amazon is little cheaper. I have not purchased anything recently on FK, so can't comment on the customer service.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#22

Post by puranjay » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 9:54 AM UTC

Everyone keeps forgetting: unlike Amazon, FK has no profit generating units within the company.

EVERYTHING FlipKart does loses it money. If they don't get funding, they're toast as a company. If they jack up prices, they lose customers to Amazon.

In this unending war, Amazon has a secret weapon: AWS. AWS is a massive cash cow for Amazon that's also profitable. This is profit Amazon can keep pumping back into its other businesses, including the loss making Amazon India operations.

FK will run out of money before Amazon does. Simple as that.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#23

Post by ssundarraj » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 10:20 AM UTC

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

I ordered a ball on FK and a week later I got an email saying that my order was canceled due to lack of stock. This has happened to me on Amazon as well, but the difference was that the email from Amazon came in a day or two.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#24

Post by gumshuda » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #22

Everyone keeps forgetting: unlike Amazon, FK has no profit generating units within the company. EVERYTHING FlipKart does loses it money. If they don't get funding, they're toast as a company. If they jack up prices, they lose customers to Amazon. In this unending war, Amazon has a secret weapon: AWS. AWS is a massive cash cow for Amazon that's also profitable. This is profit Amazon can keep pumping back into its othe…

And amazon took 15-18 years to make that cash cow. Flipkart will also figure out something in next few years. For all the negativity for flipkart, they have much much bigger share in apparel which is the place where margins are higher and profitability is easier.

And amazon can not keep spending money on India. They have to convince their shareholders that investing in India will be profitable. So if flipkart being market leader will not be able to convince someone for more money, it will put pressure on amazon also for the same.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#25

Post by gumshuda » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

Amazon is burning much more money than flipkart right now. They have invested more than flipkart's total funding and still doing quarter of Flipkart business. Flipkart on the other side is trying to reduce its loss and trying to do breakeven in few categories.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#26

Post by exelius » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

gumshuda wrote: post #24

puranjay wrote: post #22

Everyone keeps forgetting: unlike Amazon, FK has no profit generating units within the company. EVERYTHING FlipKart does loses it money. If they don't get funding, they're toast as a company. If they jack up prices, they lose customers to Amazon. In this unending war, Amazon has a secret weapon: AWS. AWS is a massive cash cow for Amazon that's also profitable. This is profit Amazon can keep pumping back into its othe…

And amazon took 15-18 years to make that cash cow. Flipkart will also figure out something in next few years. For all the negativity for flipkart, they have much much bigger share in apparel which is the place where margins are higher and profitability is easier. And amazon can not keep spending money on India. They have to convince their shareholders that investing in India will be profitable. So if flipkart being m…

There is no doubt that India will be profitable for Amazon. They're frozen out of China because of protectionist policies, they already own the US and Europe, so if they want to grow, India has to be part of that strategy. Given that their biggest competitor in India is on its heels, I would expect them to throw more money into the country, not less.

It's not that there's absolute certainty that investing in India will be profitable -- it's just that Amazon doesn't really have any better options if they want to continue to grow.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#27

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

ssundarraj wrote: post #23

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

I ordered a ball on FK and a week later I got an email saying that my order was canceled due to lack of stock. This has happened to me on Amazon as well, but the difference was that the email from Amazon came in a day or two.

[deleted]

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#28

Post by tmptmp » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

gumshuda wrote: post #25

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

Amazon is burning much more money than flipkart right now. They have invested more than flipkart's total funding and still doing quarter of Flipkart business. Flipkart on the other side is trying to reduce its loss and trying to do breakeven in few categories.

Source for the figures? just curious.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#29

Post by gumshuda » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:15 AM UTC

tmptmp wrote: post #28

gumshuda wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is burning much more money than flipkart right now. They have invested more than flipkart's total funding and still doing quarter of Flipkart business. Flipkart on the other side is trying to reduce its loss and trying to do breakeven in few categories.

Source for the figures? just curious.

Sorry , was away for sometime. Source for market share: http://m.economictimes.com/industry/services/retail/indian-e... Source for funding: actually I was wrong on this point. Amazon have invested $2B and flipkart till now had $3.3B funding.