Which is the leading online retailer in India? Is it Amazon or Flipkart?
Amazon is multinational company owned by renowned Jeff Bezos.
Flipkart is a daughter company or a subsidiary company of Walmart. Flipkart and Amazon have fierce competition in the Indian e-commerce market.
Fun Fact: Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the founders of Flipkart are ex-employees of Amazon.
Amazon faces the similar competition in many countries: Alibaba in China, Rakuten in Japan, Otto in Europe, Target, and Walmart in the USA.
Let’s see how Amazon and Flipkart are leading and challenging each other in the Indian market.
WHO ARE THEIR CONSUMERS
According to TOI (Times Of India), 52% of Flipkart consumers belong from tier-2 and beyond. These are the cities where living expenses are lower as compared to metropolitan or cosmopolitan cities.
The majority of Amazon consumers are from metropolitan cities and tier-1 cities.
HOW ARE THEY REACHING THE TARGET.
Amazon
They are continuously advertising on every social media and YouTube.
Amazon recently started supporting small businesses and handmade products via social media. These human sentiments keep the ad relevant to the customers.
They also have TV ads and Offline media ads. Other than their ads, Amazon Prime generates a substantial percentage of customers for its E-business. Amazon specifically started launching series like ‘Mirzapur’ and ‘The Family Man’. Amazon also has other products like Kindle, Audible, Twitch, IMDb. All these users eventually end up buying from Amazon.
An analysis of the Amazon website by “The Digital Website” reveals that their monthly traffic is 36 crore which is completely organic.
Have a look at Amazon’s Marketing Strategy case study for more deeper understanding.
Flipkart
Their TV ads and youtube ads are so funny that the audience shares them and watches them more than once.
Moreover, their brand 2021 ambassadors are Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor. Very much beloved artists from Bollywood.
Flipkart is trying to secure its customers from the clothing sector as well. Flipkart now owns Myntra and Jabong (which is no longer active now).
Just like prime membership, Flipkart launched Flipkart+ membership for their customers in 2018. This membership is free for students, and with exclusive offers.
In Indian households, parents always involve their kids before purchasing any electrical or technological equipment. Be it a TV or a laptop. This leads students to the Flipkart Plus service which is free, unlike Amazon Prime services.
Now, Flipkart has 20 million subscribers of this loyalty program which mostly come from tier-2 and tier-3 segments.
The competitor’s list of Amazon & Flipkart in India is going to expand as D-Mart and Jio-MART are planning to join e-retailers. It is required to mention that these brands have a very strong offline customer base. Big Bazaar and Vishal Mega Mart are needed to work on their e-business to get into the competition. Until they start acknowledging the importance of e-retails, they are under a huge risk of big loss like Nokia.