Product Overview

Dinkar Ayilavarapu, vice president for corporate strategy at Flipkart Internet Private Limited (Flipkart), was facing his most challenging opportunity to date. An Indian e-commerce company that had largely seen rapid growth since its founding in 2007, Flipkart provided over 80 million products across categories ranging from electronics to clothing to books and more. However, competitors like Amazon India and smaller e-commerce firms were encroaching on the market share that Flipkart had once dominated. Ayilavarapu and CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had a decision to make—how to improve Flipkart’s standing in the increasingly competitive Indian e-commerce industry. Ayilavarapu was considering three options: continue to sell to the upper-middle-class consumers that were Flipkart’s current customer base; acquire a less affluent but more populated customer demographic by moving into the value space; or combine the two approaches by maintaining the Flipkart site and investing further in the company’s hypervalue-based mobile app, Shopsy. Which platform(s) should Flipkart focus on to remain profitable in the marketplace? Which customers and products would allow the company to grow in revenue and income?