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India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

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Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#71
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed, in your opinion? Why now, for Amazon?

As an ex-myntra (part of flipkart) engineer, the efficiency of the engineering systems is too low. Tried too many things by taking customers satisfaction for toss. App only is the worst thing they tried out and it backfired alot. At the same time Amazon stuck to basic principles like customer satisfaction and quality of the services.

Since you were part of Myntra, may be you can answer this.

Why does the customer service suck in general? Do they not invest enough in the technology, service people?

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#72
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed, in your opinion? Why now, for Amazon?

As an ex-myntra (part of flipkart) engineer, the efficiency of the engineering systems is too low. Tried too many things by taking customers satisfaction for toss. App only is the worst thing they tried out and it backfired alot. At the same time Amazon stuck to basic principles like customer satisfaction and quality of the services.

Any commentary on the fiefdom of mid-level managers at flipkart. I have heard that it was pretty bad about an year ago.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#73
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course trade protectionism is good for the protected industries. That should be self-evident. The more important question is whether the benefit to domestic industry offsets the harm to consumers. Traditional economics would say no and I'd be inclined to agree.

Amazon is years ahead in customer support and services. Yes. but in terms of products sold, I'd argue that they are mostly the same: made in China or southeast Asia.

Almost anything can be bought on Amazon, but yes the majority of all products in the world are produced in Asia. I'm not sure why that's a bad thing.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked Flipkart's website and it's not even responsive. Horizontal scroll appears at width of 1284 pixel. I think this in 2016 is just insane.

Not sure what are you looking at. They do have a great mobile website and i could see it.

It's only mobile though. Try visiting it on a desktop browser. If you have your screen stretched out enough to be considered "landscape", you only get a screen showing "Please rotate your device"

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#75
Personal observations: Indian consumers are highly price sensitive, and will usually go for the cheapest option. Saving money, bargaining and price comparison are almost ingrained in the culture. :) With this in mind, I wonder who buys from Flipkart and what reasons they have to buy from there (just familiarity?), because its prices are usually a lot higher than Amazon.in or Paytm or Snapdeal. The product selection (in electronics, kitchen items) is also smaller on Flipkart compared to Amazon.in.

Whenever I have checked Flipkart in the past to see if the price was comparatively lesser, I've provided feedback on the price, the specs listed (incomplete), and so on, right on the product page. But it doesn't look like any of that feedback was ever acted upon. For what it's worth, Amazon.in didn't act on any feedback that I have provided several times either (it fails miserably on simple things like sorting products by price or by another attribute, and hasn't gotten it right till today). Technology and website wise, both Flipkart and Amazon.in look like they're designed and developed by incompetent development teams, along with a product data team that has very little clue on product attributes and how to list them. The managers in both companies don't seem to care either.

The app-only strategy by Flipkart (which was quickly reverted) and Myntra (reverted last month) was a bad idea from the beginning. The apps involve too many taps and navigation back and forth between screens to refine searches or find things. The more tech-savvy people distrust apps and also prefer a better shopping experience by using larger screen desktop/laptop browsers to open multiple tabs and compare prices (and maybe not logging in and clearing older cookies to avoid any user profile based bias that changes prices for certain users).

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#76
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, that doesn't seem a huge risk. Lying to customer service isn't a life hack. It's unethical and a crime. Depending on the specifics, it could be mail fraud, a felony. Maybe I'm naive, but I believe most adults are not actually willing to commit fraud in writing. And besides the risk of prosecution, most people like to think of themselves as honest people. It's hard to continue that narrative if you're proactively…

I was wondering if this varies by country; both the expected extent to which one should game the system (e.g. prevalence of bribes) and actual ability of the authorities to prosecute people.

Ah, yeah, I bet you're right.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#77
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not have lobbying in India. It's called bribing, and I doubt flipkart is doing it. Entrenched companies like reliance/tata are known for that but smaller ones like flipkart cannot take the risk of getting caught.

> Entrenched companies like reliance/tata are known for that Tangential to the topic, but can you point out where has Tata been found to have been indulging in that? If I recall correctly, Tata has refused to work with the Government when it required them to do something illegal on multiple occasions. This is why Tata went out of the airline market.

You can search for Tata group role in 2G scam. I don't know what is current status of case. But Tata group was lobbying with then Telecom minister. One example of probe into Tata conduct:

http://www.firstpost.com/business/corporate-business/2g-scam...

But you can find a lot about this case. The point being Tata or anyone are not absolutely clean.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#78
I'm curious: How does an ecommerce physical product delivery service in India solve a major problem, namely that there are taxes and customs tariffs when goods are transported exclusively within India, from warehouse to customer delivery location, across Indian state boundaries? I've seen the queues of cargo trucks waiting at state borders for tax purposes and it seems like a grossly inefficient bureaucratic nightmare.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#79
I still don't understand why they made the weird move to be "Mobile Only". It was insane.

On a side note, I'm a little weary of CEOs who have pictures of Steve Jobs up on walls and try hard to emulate him. Just because that style of leadership worked at Apple doesn't mean it works everywhere.

Re: India's Flipkart Has an Amazon Problem

#80
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever, initiated and approved that move!!. Quick Google search showed this name - Punit Soni. Why did he leave? Fallout with the CEO and team?

How does a quick google search give you the name of the responsible person! That's some insider info :)

searching for "flipkart app only strategy responsible" showed this result http://www.businessinsider.com/flipkart-punil-soni-explains-...

on the first page as the 4rth result for me.

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