India’s largest e-com firm Flipkart has been slowly but steadily expanding its lifestyle-related product verticals. The company has recently introduced new categories including health & beauty, watches, and belts, bags & luggage.
When Flipkart acquired, Letsbuy some three months ago, it was a move to boost its electronics product catalogue, going forward. The company also launched its digital music store Flyte before expanding into pens & stationery, home appliances and perfumes. The latest inclusion means Flipkart now deals in products across 14 categories.
The health and beauty category is split into various segments like makeup, body and skin care, men’s grooming, hair care, bath and spa, beauty accessories and fragrances. These segments also feature sub-categories and include brands like Dove, Gillette, L’Oréal Paris, Maybelline, Nivea, Lakmé, Gatsby, Vega and more.
Even for watches (you will find both analog and digital ones), the site is selling brands like Adidas, Aspen, Casio, Christian Audigier, Citizen, Titan, Ed Hardy, Esprit, Fastrack, French Connection (Fcuk), Fossil, Giordano and more, with prices ranging from Rs 1,000 or less to Rs 10,001 and above.
The bags section has an impressive range of brands like Hidesign, Baggit, French Connection, Holii, Yelloe, Fastrack, Footloose, Kara, Mod’acc, National Geographic, Paridhan and Vakaro. And the prices range between Rs 199 and Rs 6,000.
In an earlier interaction with Techcircle.in, Flipkart’s vice-president (marketing) Ravi Vora said, “Going forward, we will continue to expand the range of products available on Flipkart. Everything except groceries and automobiles are fair game for us.
“Our aim is to make online shopping an attractive destination for offline shoppers as well. While we expand our portfolio of products, our key consideration is to maintain the quality of customer service we are known for, and not compromise that in our quest for growth,” he added.
With Flipkart entering the above segments, the move is bound to impact businesses in the same space – namely, e-com sites like Fashionandyou, 99labels, Watchkart, Yebhi and Bagskart. Let us wait and see the kind of traction Flipkart gains this time.
Aroos May 29, 2012 13:13
Absolutely birlliant, in my view this is the biggest mistake fk has done and they will have to pay a heavy price for it. The silver lining is both will slug it out to take the no1 spot and in the process expand the market. In the process will they end up killing smaller players is highly unlikely. Special Focus Verticals stand a good chance of gaining from this by offering a better UI, rich assortment and being more consumer focused than market creation.
With the way certain events have unfolded over the last few weeks, in my view we are heading towards a voucher less eCommerce ear as most guys seem to be running out of cash and will soon start to spend with some sanity as there is no point trying to fight with the 2 biggies. Another positive side to this is that the market will take some direction that there are clear leaders hence it would now be more about innovation and less about competing on CPCs and vouchers.
Next 6 months should turn the tide and certain people from the investors community recently talked about eComm not being flavour anymore will hunt for the right companies which will be easy to pick with right & just valuations. I somehow feel quite relieved with Letsbuy down, flipkart at no 1, jabong at no 2 and both seem to be getting into each other’s territories can be easily termed as a consolidation.
In the end, i see jabong gaining but fk at no 1 closely followed by jb