Flipkart goes Offline to Sell Mobile Phones

Flipkart, a top-selling e-commerce portal, has agreed to display a selection of its exclusive smartphones in leading Spice Hotspot stores across India. Flipkart intends to use Spice Hotspot’s widespread offline network to sell smartphones exclusive to Flipkart. Both Spice and Flipkart agreed to launch exclusive experience zones in Spice Hotspot stores, combined with live demo smartphones on display. Known as the ‘assisted ecommerce’ model, it involves using both online and offline resources in order to sell products.

During the recent ‘Big Billion’ sales, Flipkart managed to sell $200 million in smartphones alone, out of a total recorded sales of $300 million. Mobiles contribute to 65% of the total number of sales generated on Flipkart.

Rajiv Sethi, Chief Marketing Officer of Spice Retail, said, "We are delighted to partner with Flipkart as an offline partner for their exclusive smartphone range. With our wide footprint across India and our well trained store staff, we are confident that we will add a lot of value to our customer’s shopping experience. This unique online and offline synergy will offer customers the best of both worlds - the convenience of online retail and the in-store experience of offline retail.”

The staff at the Spice Hotspot outlets will assist customers in placing their order on the Flipkart app. After the order is placed, the customer receives the smartphone at the store. Delivery is instant as compared to its online counterpart, where COD and home-delivery is offered.

Ankit Nagori, Chief Business Officer at Flipkart, had this to say: "This is targeted mainly at places where online shopping is still catching up. Customers in tier-3 and tier-4 towns have heard about online shopping but are still circumspect. This is going to be a big customer conversion tool for us in the smartphone category”.

Employing over 33,000 people with over 30 million registered users (at 10 million daily visits), Flipkart delivers 8+ million products each month in over 70 categories. Flipkart has setup 30 experience stores in 19 cities across India, and plans to expand rapidly. They are in talks with eight to ten other offline retail chains to showcase their products. Spice Mobility, which owns Spice Hotspot retail, has over 300 retail stores in major cities across India.

This form of targeting will be greatly beneficial to brands retailing exclusively on Flipkart, such as Motorola. By targeting a wider & non-tech-savvy audience, Flipkart intends to increase its sales, while imparting the importance of mobile-based commerce. As of now, only smartphones are being considered as an offline sell.