Flipkart’s Strategic Moves to Survive in Tough Competition

The Indian e-commerce giant, Flipkart is pacing along with other digital companies by partaking in the payment card industry. The e-tailer is set to launch a co-branded credit card in collaboration with Axis Bank and Mastercard. 

With the introduction of Flipkart’s co-branded card, the e-commerce company along with its other partners is targeting to sell 1 million cards in a year. 

"We want to be the fastest co-branded credit card to reach the 1-million-mark. We should do 1 million in a year," Executive VP for payments and cards at Axis Bank, Sanjeev Moghe told the reporters.

At the present time, Axis Bank has up to 6.17 million credit cards in use, which makes it the fourth-biggest credit card issuer in the nation, as reported by the daily news, Mint.  

Captivating Attention of Consumers 

Recently, Flipkart has begun revamping its platform by shifting its focus on sellers and consumers. Earlier in June, the e-commerce company decided to reduce commissions and shipping fee of sellers, which are registered with the platform; it was one of the moves to attract new sellers. More so, the e-tailer has recently collaborated with online accounting and taxation platform, Clear Tax, which provides financial services to the business enterprises. Through this partnership, the e-commerce platform wants to bring ease to the sellers. 

While concentrating on its customer base, Flipkart has also introduced services for consumers such as ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’, wherein customers can buy products and pay within a stipulated time at their own convenience. This offer can be availed by shortlisted online shoppers.  

Following this, the company has now come up with another customer-centric strategy by launching its co-branded credit card. As per the agreement, the partnered bank, Axis, will be accountable for risk analysis, card issuance, payment processing, KYC, underwriting, discounts as well as cash backs, whereas the e-commerce firm will be looking after marketing and promotions, as reported by the daily news, The Economic Times. 

“Today around 20 per cent of Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) on Flipkart’s marketplace goes to some kind of an affordability construct. In the next three to four years, we want to take this to 40 per cent, doubling the affordability and access to the Indian consumer," CEO of Flipkart, Kalyan Krishnamurthy told the daily news, The Economic Times. 

Other companies, which are offering discounts through Flipkart’s co-branded credit card, are MakeMyTrip, Uber, PVR, Gaana, Goibibo, UrbanClap and Curefit, according to above-cited report. 

Follow in Others’ Footsteps 

Flipkart’s entrance in the payment card industry is a strategic move as the e-commerce company is trailing other prominent companies, which have their presence in the payment card domain. Consumer-centric companies namely Ola, Amazon and Paytm have currently entered in the payment card industry and are expanding its roots within it. 

Earlier this year, Indian ride-hailing platform, Ola, joined hands with SBI (State Bank of India) and released its co-branded card named, Ola Money-SBI Credit Card facilitating convenience to  Ola customers. Similarly, the e-commerce company, Amazon got collaborated with ICICI Bank and launched co-branded card, Amazon Pay Credit Card in 2018, targeting Amazon Prime users.

On the similar grounds, Paytm partnered with Citi Bank and introduced a co-branded credit card, Paytm First Card, which “offers 1 per cent unlimited cashback on all transactions with no restrictions on earning categories,” the online payment firm, Paytm says on its website.