E-commerce giants Flipkart & Amazon making space for gigantic gadgets

Two of the biggest e-commerce giants Flipkart and Amazon making efforts to woo additional consumers to make big-ticket purchases such as air conditioners and televisions online by providing exchange offers, high-speed delivery, and installation. Well that’s not all; they are also considering after-sale service and buy-back offers.

Both the giants Flipkart and Amazon India have announced important investments into building supply chain, also in delivery and installation capabilities for selling large appliances online. Whereas Flipkart has proclaimed a network of 10 delivery centres extend over 6 lakh square feet, Amazon India has invested in setting up nine fulfillment of similar capacity crossways nine states to ship big appliances and furniture.

As per recent scenario, the smartphones, small electronics and fashion account for a large amount of the sales of online marketplaces. Both the giants Flipkart and Amazon are now eyeing a big chunk of India's fast-growing consumer durables and large appliances market. The country's electronics market is probable to rise to $400 billion in 2020 from $94.2 billion in 2015, according to data sourced from India Brand Equity Foundation.

To explain this, Rohit Sharma, head of supply chain at Flipkart, said,
"As of now, we offer next day delivery service across 10 cities and offer scheduled `D+I' (delivery plus installation) services through our partner organisation Jeeves, which covers 9,000 pin codes."

The top marketplace also have plans to begin its private label brands in large appliances category to furnish to specific price points and specifications, though it has not yet laid out a concrete plan. According to experts, the after sales service will be a key factor for marketplaces to make a spot in the large appliances market, apart from buyback offers.

"If we can provide a great experience with the purchase and service for large appliance, we create a customer for life," says Manish Tiwary , vice-president, category management, at Amazon India. This apart, the e-commerce Amazon India has also partnered with multiple third-party service partners, including HouseJoy , across 20 cities to offer installation services.

"The facilities set up by us will also open up 1,200 job opportunities in captive and contract roles across the various stages of supply chain and delivery . We are currently focused on fulfilling the orders through Amazon with the FBA model," said Akhil Saxena, vice-president, India customer fulfilment, Amazon India.