Flipkart Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Marketing Strategy of Flipkart analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Flipkart marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Flipkart Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:

Flipkart Product Strategy:

The product strategy and mix in Flipkart marketing strategy can be explained as follows:

Flipkart sells products in more than 80+ categories ranging from books, clothing to electronics, mobiles and appliances. Flipkart can be considered as a service platform which acts as an interface between sellers and buyers. Hence the product offering in its marketing mix is divided broadly into two:

- Product to the Seller

Flipkart is a platform to showcase his product. It also provides analysis of the products sold by the seller on its website like how many units are sold, how much profit he is making, opportunity to promote his product, the type of logistic channel which will provide him better profits and which product is not selling and several analyses for the same. Flipkart also provides the option of Flipkart assured where the products of the seller are kept in warehouses owned by Flipkart.

The products are picked, packed and dispatched by Flipkart mostly through its logistic partner E-kart

- Product to Buyer

A platform where he can access products sold by several companies and vendors and decide on the product to buy based on the price and other criteria like vendor capability to deliver the promised item. Flipkart also provides a hassle-free payment system- pay online through debit, credit, net banking and Cash on delivery. A sub category service offered by Flipkart to its providers is Flipkart assured where the product bought by the buyer undergoes 6 quality checks and fast and free shipping. Flipkart provides the rating of the product and the seller which helps the buyer make right decisions

Image: company website

Flipkart Price/Pricing Strategy:

Below is the pricing strategy in Flipkart marketing strategy:

Flipkart has built its pricing model in such a way so that it competes with other ecommerce players. By following the marketplace model Flipkart reduced the price by forcing the sellers to compete among themselves to provide the cheaper product.

Flipkart does not charge for its delivery service if the order is more than Rs 500 but charges a nominal charge for less than Rs 500 in the case of Flipkart assured. If the product is directly shipped by the seller, then the seller charges of shipping apply. Flipkart also offers one-day delivery where the product is delivered within a day but in this case Flipkart charges extra service charge and installation option for a price in certain locations. This gives an overview of the pricing strategy in the Flipkart’s marketing mix.

Other facility for buyers include

• Availability of E- wallet and E-gifts facility.

• EMI facility for certain products

Flipkart charges monthly warehouse charges, referral charges and shipping charges from the seller. These charges vary according to the option chosen by the seller.

Flipkart Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy in the Flipkart marketing mix:

Flipkart follows a hub and spoke model. It has 21 state of the art warehouses. Here the products are initially sorted and packed. Goods move from these warehouses or fulfilment centres to mother hubs. Mother hubs are located at the centre of a 200 kilometre radius zone that consists of 3 to 5 major cities that accounted for majority of demand as well as numerous smaller cities. From the mother hubs, the goods are transported to local hubs from where the delivery van or bike picks and delivers the products.

Flipkart deliver products to customers pan India through an extensive deliver network.

Flipkart Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Flipkart marketing strategy is as follows:

Flipkart started with their famous campaign in 2011 under the name “No kidding no worries”. Here the campaign was about kids acting in adult roles. These ads have made a comeback recently but now concentrating on “Get The Best Of Everything On Flipkart #PerfectBuy! “. Flipkart has been aggressive in its promotion and advertising strategies as a part of its marketing mix. Flipkart promotes through print media sometimes through a full-page ad especially during their Big Billion Day. Big Billion day is a promotion tool used by Flipkart where throughout the day Flipkart sells products at a cheaper rate sometimes providing huge discounts. Flipkart has other promotional tools like big freedom sale, deals of the day, offer zone page on its website and app.

Major digital marketing done by Flipkart

• Uses its app to send pop ups to its customers of the latest offers

• Makes use of data mining and ad words to send dedicated ads to prospective customers

Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Flipkart.

People:

Flipkart direct mode of contact with the buyer is through the customer care centre which considers cancellation, supplier issues, product damage issues and other issues faced by the customer while conducting a transaction. The other mode of contact with the buyers is through the app and the website. These modes are indirectly linked to the people in the company as the IT infrastructure and the website has to be updated and safeguarded from crashes as this might lead to huge losses for the buyers, sellers and Flipkart as a whole. The point of contact with the seller is through the seller portal on Flipkart and through the Business development executives. If the buyer is taking Flipkart assured the packaging and parcelling of the product is done by Flipkart executives and the product undergoes 6 quality checks which helps the seller provide high quality products to the customers. So highly qualified individuals are hired by Flipkart for the same.

Physical Evidence:

Flipkart offices, delivery boxes, packaging material etc are all a part of its physical evidence. The product delivered by Flipkart is well packaged and cushioned to avoid damages to the product. The product also undergoes 6 quality checks as mentioned earlier so as to deliver high quality products. Prompt delivery of the product, the 30-day return policy, site and app user interface, and the cash on delivery option add to the physical environment provided by Flipkart.

Process:

Flipkart has several business processes in place to ensure smooth execution of its services and deliveries. As soon as the person lands on Flipkart page the offers and the products browsed by the customer before are listed. The buyer can choose the option of buying the product or adding it to the cart and shop for other items. As soon as the product is ordered the product is packed, processed and shipped from the fulfilment centres. The product can be tracked by the user from the fulfilment centre to the point of actual sale. In case of Cash on delivery the person pays the amount to the person who comes to deliver the product. Else if paying online the payment gateways are used by Flipkart to purchase the product. Every process is made sure that it is hassle ad bug free by Flipkart. Hence this concludes the Flipkart marketing mix.

About Flipkart:

Flipkart is India’s leading E-commerce market place with listings of over 80 million products across 80+ categories. It was started in 2007 by two Amazon employees Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal who left and started Flipkart Online Services Private Limited with an initial corpus of Rs. 400,000. They started with launch of books but later moved into the space of electronic goods, clothing and many other categories. Flipkart operates only in India and in 2016 became the first Indian App to reach 80 million users and 100million registered customers. Flipkart also has 100 thousand registered sellers, 21 state of the art warehouses, 10 million-page visits daily, technology that enables shipping of 8 million shipments per month.

It works on the market place model where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processed by the marketplace operator which in this case is Flipkart. Flipkart used to operate on an inventory based model with its fully owned subsidiary WS Retail but to drastically increase its presence Flipkart moved into the market place model by selling its stakes in WS Retail.

This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Flipkart. The Marketing Strategy & Mix section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.

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