<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/50132741.cms" />Customers are paramount in any user-centric product organization. Although it’s hard to build a delightful experience for a single user, it’s incredibly hard to build delightful experiences for tens of millions of users and do it every day. That’s the nature of the challenge we’re facing here at <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>: scaling delight and growing our reach at an incredible pace. 
 
When Flipkart first started, finding things online, especially through a mobile device, was un-common. Flipkart had to introduce the breakthrough Cash-On-Delivery (COD) service in India and a number of other product innovations just for people to buy books conveniently. Now, each month we deliver more than 8 million products to happy customers across India, all of which start with an interaction on one of our many Flipkart and Myntra properties. 
 To do that, we’re pushing the boundaries of technology and processes. Our recently launched <keyword id="3132106" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart-Lite">Flipkart Lite</keyword> web app was done as a partnership with Google. The mobile site is a sophisticated piece of technology because it emulates a native-like application feeling at a fraction of the data cost and doesn’t require a download. Technology aside, we challenged our engineers to come up with a solution for the hundreds of millions of Indians who are about to make the leap from feature to smartphone and will have limited data at their disposal. Our services ring hollow if we’re unable to make them available for all the consumers we aspire to serve. 
 
On the other hand, we challenged ourselves to come up with a way to make shopping more delightful for the millions of Indians who shop with Flipkart every day. Shopping, like many other activities, are social in nature. We decided to develop our in-app chat experience, Ping, while thinking about how to make the shopping experience more connected and delightful. Chatting with your friends or family for gifts and items is just the start of how we think real-time messaging can compliment shopping and commerce. We’re excited to roll out many new innovations leveraging Ping soon. 
 
Creating a workplace that allows for incredible product development requires tremendous talent and thoughtfulness. At Flipkart we’ve worked hard to put together the best product and tech team to solve the complex and dynamic challenges India poses. Unlike other nations, India’s varied consumers and infrastructure requires an equally flexible team and product culture. We’ve blended many styles of work ranging from top tech and consulting firms worldwide to solve these challenges. 
 
With the user as our guiding light we’re assembling the absolute best group of product builders and thinkers to enable and expand commerce in India through technology. Stay tuned! 
 
(This article is authored by <keyword id="2796187" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Peeyush-Ranjan">Peeyush Ranjan</keyword>, Chief Technology Officer, Flipkart) 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

Flipkart's Chief Technology Officer reveals the secret to creating happy customers

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/56472055.cms" /> 
Three top level executives resigned from top management level in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a>, day after the e-commerce giant named new CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, who is building his team of top executives primarily consisting of company veterans. 
 
The executives leaving the company are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Saikiran+Krishnamurthy&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Saikiran Krishnamurthy</a>, who headed the e-tailer supply chain unit Ekart; senior vice president <keyword id="373799" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Surojit-Chatterjee">Surojit Chatterjee</keyword>, who headed product and chief marketing officer <keyword id="2327848" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Samardeep-Subandh">Samardeep Subandh</keyword>. 
 Reportedly, the three of them had joined <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> in 2015 when Flipkart was aggressively hiring top talent from outside after raising over $2.6 billion in funding between 2014 and 2015. 
 
The reason for the departure of three executives could not be immediately ascertained. 
 The exit of these executives comes after Flipkart announced that Kalyan Krishnamurthy will be the CEO of the main horizontal commerce unit and also oversee <keyword id="2057197" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="eKart">Ekart</keyword>. 
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Binny+Bansal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Binny Bansal</a> was elevated to Group CEO and will oversee other businesses, including payments (PhonePe) and fashion (Myntra, Jabong), in addition to finding new growth drivers for the group. 
 
As a part of this reorganisation Nitin Seth, current chief administrative officer at Flipkart, was made the COO for Flipkart with additional responsibility for Ekart and customer experience besides HR, strategy and corporate functions. 
 Seth was directly reporting to Kalyan Krishnamurthy under the new structure. <keyword id="2748488" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Saikiran-Krishnamurthy">Saikiran Krishnamurthy</keyword>, a strategy expert from <keyword id="6372399" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="McKinsey">McKinsey</keyword>, was initially roped in as COO of Flipkart's commerce unit and later went onto lead Ekart. 
 Other two executives - chief product officer <keyword id="278552" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Punit-Soni">Punit Soni</keyword> and chief technology officer <keyword id="4052975" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="peeyush-ranjan-">Peeyush Ranjan -</keyword> left the company last year.

Top 3 executives leave Flipkart, restructuring continues

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/49179906.cms" /> 
After nearly a decade in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google </a>and two decades in the United States, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Peeyush+Ranjan">Peeyush Ranjan</a> quit <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google">Google</a>’s engineering team to join <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart">Flipkart</a> as its Chief Technology Officer. 
 
After an illustrious career as head of engineering for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google</a>’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Android+One">Android One</a> and a part of Google-owned Value Devices division of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Motorola">Motorola</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Peeyush+Ranjan">Ranjan</a> has been there, done that. 
 
This year <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart">Flipkart</a> roped in 3 tech experts from Amazon, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google</a> and Microsoft and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Peeyush+Ranjan">Ranjan</a> has his name on the list. He is among the first batch of world-class engineers to move from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Silicon+Valley">Silicon Valley</a> to India to participate in Indian <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=e-commerce">e-commerce</a>. 
 
Business Insider India chats up with this ex-Googler about life in India, technology and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart">Flipkart</a>. 
 
How has life changed post <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>? 
There are two sides to it – the personal side and the work environment. I’ve lived in the US for 20 years, but was born and brought up here of course, so not a stranger by any means. Things are different in both good and bad ways. You get to eat great mangoes, and get stuck in traffic. My stint in Bangalore with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google</a> prepared my family for it. 
 On the professional side it doesn’t even cross my mind that it is about US or India. The desire and sense of entitlement is very high when you move from working in a place like <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword>. However, at<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart"> Flipkart</a> I’ve been positively surprised. As the company plans to invest more in product and technology, we’re playing to our strengths. The problems we’re trying to solve are second to none. As a segment leader we’ve to move fast as there is so much ground to cover. That results in long work days and it’s a pleasurable experience. 
 
What are your current areas of focus in terms of technology? 
We’re investing heavily in world-class <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=infrastructure">infrastructure</a>. We now have our own Data Center. The amount of insights that can be generated from data is incredible. Also, anything Mobile-related is of superior importance. 
 
How’s Ping doing for Flipakart? 
It’s doing well. This is just the beginning of what’s possible. Some are also using Ping to communicate with each other, which is also good. Overall, it’s a very solid footing. 
 
The need we are trying to address is real, and the user experience is great. Stay tuned, you’ll see more come out of Ping. There have been technological advancements in here that companies like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google</a> and Facebook can’t rival. The web socket we’ve used has resulted in 6x lesser battery consumption. We’ve been able to do this as we have world-class engineers who realize that battery life and data consumption are critical to the end user. 
 
What should be the core areas of focus for Indian <keyword id="35621" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="e-commerce">e-commerce</keyword> companies to differentiate themselves? 
Differentiation will definitely occur. However, the Indian consumer is very different. Thus, focusing on the needs of the Indian consumer is most important. That’ll allow companies to leverage their strengths and cause differentiation. The dog and the tail are set up that way. 
 
In the US there are a lot more high-end smartphones. The capability of the network and devices are above a certain threshold. Trying to imitate their products here would not work. One has to take into account the second-hand phones, limited battery life and network bandwidth. When you keep these in mind you design a product for the Indian consumer that works seamlessly across smartphones, and now things are working. 
 
Everybody would ultimately do what the consumer wants, but one has to focus on his strengths to build something better. 
 
What’s the role of technology in a market as challenging as India? Is it still about customer acquisition? 
There is a lot more to it. I strongly believe this is once in a lifetime opportunity given to Indian software engineers. We don’t have a legacy to carry forward. Products like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=WhatsApp">WhatsApp</a> were adopted in India and elsewhere much before it became popular in the US. 
 
While there is a gap, technology gives us the opportunity to leapfrog and establish India as a thought leader. After all, we have some of the best software engineers in the world. To give you an idea, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart">Flipkart</a> was doing more Same-day delivery in India than <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Amazon">Amazon</a> in the US. 
 
We can start pushing the limits to what the world can see us doing in terms of technology while applying technology to these gaps and leapfrogging. 
 
Do you see policy restrictions as hurdles to India’s technological innovation? 
I see it as policy, not policy restrictions. It’s hard to say it should be this or that way. There are several factors that go into balancing all aspects that go into creating a product. 
 
The way see it is that as an Indian company we have to follow the law of the land. As an Engineer I have to work with these constraints or enablements. Sometimes they help you, sometimes they don’t. There’s a local context one has to work in. 
 
In India we have OTP (One Time Password) to avoid fraud. Many countries in the West don’t have that concept. That affects everyone willing to do online payments. The country has also rolled out payment specifications for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Aadhar">Aadhar</a> using bio-metrics for authentication. It is the biggest bio metric database in the world. Building an authentication system on the backbone of this would allow us to integrate bio-metrics on the phone directly with payment authentication and bypass all other payment hurdles. 
 
What are your plans for the <keyword id="2546729" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Big-Billion-Day-sale">Big Billion Day sale</keyword> this year? 
We’re preparing our systems to handle the traffic. A majority of our time is going into making sure our systems are ready to take that load. 
 
Is it really that simple? 
*Laughs* It’s not simple. If you’re building a jumbo jet you’re building it to take the load. After that, it will fly. It’s not simple, but simply said. 
 
Why offer the Big Billion Day sale only to the app, and not the desktop site? 
The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Big+Billion+Day+sale">Big Billion Day sale</a> has its own construct, and we’re trying to offer the best experience on mobile. You can still buy things from the desktop site. 
 
It’s in the news that your initiative to take select categories and products to the app only platform is the first logical step to going app only. Do you rubbish these reports? 
We want to be the best place to shop on mobile. App only might not be the way to do it. Our approach is more holistic, and we experiment all the time. Offering app only offers or app only categories is a part of our effort to understand what works.

Exclusive: Peeyush, CTO, Flipkart on Technology, India and
Big Billion Day Sale

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/48669120.cms" /> 
Rubbishing media reports about <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart">Flipkart</a> going app only, its Chief Product Officer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Punit+Soni">Punit Soni</a> said today, “We are comprehensively focused on mobile and mobile centric experiences. The future of communication is not a tethered clunky box wired to a power socket. However, there are no plans of going app only.” 
 The e-commerce major launched ‘Ping’ - a drag and drop chat option to share product details with fellow <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> app users. Once can share their shopping experience using text, photo and emoticons in real time. 
 
“This will fundamentally change the way Flipkart works. A third party app often doesn’t allow such deep integration. ‘Ping’ aims to transform online shopping by allowing users to talk to each other real time in order to make decisions and decide on what to buy”, Soni said. 
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Peeyush+Ranjan">Peeyush Ranjan</a>, CTO and Head of Engineering, Flipkart said, “Ping has been optimized for efficient results even on slow 2G networks. It will also support android wearables where user can read and reply to messages from their android watches. This is happening right here in India with Indians. This is the real Make in India for you.” 
 
Flipkart’s new ‘homegrown’ feature has been in the works for 3-4 months. Ping will be available to customers through an invite only model in the first phase. Selected users would get invites from Flipkart, and can send up to 10 invites. However one can register on the app to enable the chat feature. 
 
In response to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=snapdeal">Snapdeal</a> Chief Product Officer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Anand+Chandrasekaran">Anand </a><a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Anand+Chandrasekaran">Chandrasekaran</a>’s recent comments on Flipkart’s Image Search option and that ‘the stakes are very high for something to be on <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>’, Soni smiles pleasantly. “It’s time we rise above taking such digs at each other. Anand is a great guy. I’m more than willing to share a drink with him and smooth it out”, he says.

No App only plans, Flipkart launches social shopping with ‘Ping’

<ul><li>SpotDraft recently raised $1.5 million in a pre-series A from Binny Bansal’s 021 Capital, Freshworks CEO Girish Mathrubootham, among others. </li><li>The legal tech startup offers contract creation, management and analysis. </li><li>Indian unicorn entrepreneurs are turning into investors with a purpose – to help startups scale. </li></ul>A small Indian legal tech startup has been able to do what many early-stage entrepreneurs only dream of. SpotDraft has recently raised $1.5 million in a pre-series A round from Binny Bansal’s 021 Capital and several marquee investors like Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks), Peeyush Ranjan (VP Engineering, Google Inc – former CTO Flipkart) and Indus Khaitan (Chief of Growth, Chargebee) among others. SpotDraft, which started off as an online platform to help people create contracts and automate their invoices, has evolved to offer contract creation, contract management and contract analysis. For example, it claims it helps businesses create a solid legally-binding contract, which they can negotiate and explore online. Its Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence-enabled services allow them to share with entrepreneurs the good, bad and ugly aspects about the contract. It can quickly help identify compliant and non-compliant clauses of a contract. Shashank Bijapur, CEO and co-founder, SpotDraft spoke to Business Insider to spill the secrets on how they convinced the marquee investors to place their bets on a startup which is just about two years old. According to Bijapur, what worked for them was the value proposition of the business. “At a high level, the problem statement and solution were very clear. Legal as a problem is ripe for disruption making way for complete automation of legal processes that a business has to undergo,” he said. Legal paperwork is one of the many hurdles that businesses and entrepreneurs face, especially in a market like India where these tend to be time-consuming. Compliance is also increasingly becoming an important exercise, as regulations become more complex. It also helped that Bijapur, a Harvard law grad and Wall Street lawyer and his co-founder Madhav Bhagat, a Carnegie Mellon graduate and Google, New York employee, had their background to vouch for them as well. With the funds raised from this round, it is looking to focus on growth in terms of team, sales and development. In the near future, it plans to expand geographies to Europe, US and Middle East, while also looking to grow revenue 10X over the next 12-14 months. The investment is also the latest example of Indian unicorn founders turning into evangelists for startups in the country, through mentoring and investments. Many aren’t just looking at being moneybags but also contribute to the success of other startups. “As founders, the access to capital may not have been as difficult as finding the right people for your business – people who can take us from 0 to 1. The value that these investors brought on board is immense and even before we were given the term sheet, we were introduced to half a dozen clients,” said Bijapur. Currently, the startup has over a dozen multi-national corporations as well as 1,000 SMEs as customers. Among its customers include Wipro, Goodtimes and The Circle, according to the company’s web site. See Also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-two-startup-icons-switch-to-the-other-side-as-venture-capitalists/articleshow/67420444.cms">India’s two startup icons switch to the other side — as venture capitalists</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/angel-tax-startup-definition-changed-exemption-up-to-25-crore/articleshow/68063050.cms">Indian government finally comes to a decision on Angel Tax, changes definition of startups</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/for-indian-startups-2018-has-been-a-year-of-bouncing-back-as-venture-capital-funding-doubles/articleshow/67286540.cms">For Indian startups, 2018 has been a year of bouncing back as venture capital funding doubles</a>

Why India’s Unicorn founders backed this barely two-year-old legal tech startup

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/52689615.cms" /> 
 Indian e-commerce giant <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> has decided to revamp its tech leadership team once again, and has hired Micromax CTO and former Amazon exececutive <keyword id="70775" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ashish-Agrawal">Ashish Agrawal</keyword> as its senior SVP of engineering. 
 Agrawal will be assuming his role from this month, as the engineering head of its consumer shopping experience and would be reporting to Flipkart CEO <keyword id="6364080" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Binny-Bansal">Binny Bansal</keyword>. 
 
Agrawal, who was leading Micromax's tech initiatives and formulating its software services, was also the technology &amp; development head for Amazon's payment service Amazon Payments for about five years. He was also actively involved in the development for Amazon Payments solutions, which was focused on monetization of Digital Goods and Media. At Amazon, he also led the development of the m-commerce apps for about 2.5 years, leading the development &amp; launch of its e-Commerce web services. 
 
Other changes to Flipkart's tech leadership team include engineering head Peeyush Ranjan moving on to the role of group CTO and engineering SVP Hari Vasudev moving to the tech function for its critical marketplace and e-kart businesses. 
 
These changes have come after Flipkart witnessed seven of its top executives quitting last year, including chief product officer Punit Soni, commerce platform head Mukesh Bansal, chief business officer Ankit Nagori, CTO Amod Malviya, and Chief People Officer Mekin Maheshwari. 
 
<a href="http://www.teleanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Ashish-Agrawal-CTO-Micromax.jpg">Image source</a>

Flipkart revamping its tech leadership team; hires Micromax tech honcho Ashish Agrawal

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/46824476.cms" /> Technology is emerging as the biggest battlefront for Indian eCommerce and software firms. With leading companies as Infosys and <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> hiring engineers groomed in toptier US companies to acquire the domain edge they need to dominate rivals, the need for efficient employee seems to have peaked up. No wonder they are poaching talent from the competition—even from <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword>. A news report by the Economic Times has confirmed thatBengaluru-based eCommerce giant Flipkart is hiring another top engineer from Google, highlighting a trend among the country's fast-growing companies to tap into <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> for talent to bolster their technology fronts. 
 Sources have informed the financial daily that Peeyush Ranjan, a senior engineering director at Google, will join Flipkart's commerce division led by <keyword id="705865" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Mukesh-Bansal">Mukesh Bansal</keyword> in a key role. 
 This is nothing new, since the company had hired another Google <keyword id="2796851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="engineering-leader">engineering leader</keyword>, <keyword id="278552" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Punit-Soni">Punit Soni</keyword> as a <keyword id="2796852" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="chief-product-officer-in-the-same-division">chief product officer in the same division</keyword> last month. Soni will join Flipkart this month and Ranjan likely in May. As per the news report, Mukesh along with Flipkart co-founder <keyword id="225032" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Sachin-Bansal">Sachin Bansal</keyword> had met around three-dozen potential hires in the Valley last month. 
 
(Image: India Times)

Flipkart goes shopping in Google!

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/47501815.cms" /> After spearheading innumerable innovative projects to enhance consumer experience for three years, <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>’s vice president of products <keyword id="2878282" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Saran-Chatterjee">Saran Chatterjee</keyword> quits. 
 After his stints at companies like <keyword id="2878685" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="OmegaMobile">OmegaMobile</keyword> and Fujitsu Network Communications and Yahoo, he had joined Flipkart in 2012 and was leading the e-commerce major's product management and design for its consumer experience and platform team. He was also involved in building out Flipkart’s new advertising business. This resignation comes at a time when Flipkart is investing heavily to recruit talent from global firms like Google and Yahoo to build a technology capability that can rival <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword> in the country. 

	In March, it had roped in two senior Google execs Punit Soni and Peeyush Ranjan for $5-6 million annual packages and former McKinsey director Saikiran Krishnamurthy for a similar pay package, as per company sources familiar with their compensation. Former Yahoo India R&amp;D head Hari Vasudev had also joined Flipkart as Senior Vice President- Engineering, IT &amp; Analytics for its Supply Chain vertical in April this year.

	 
	(image credits: www.brunchnews.com)

Saran Chatterjee leaves Flipkart

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/49062550.cms" /> Right ahead of the very lucrative festive season, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=flipkart">Flipkart </a>is strengthening its army. The e-tailer has announced three major appointments this Tuesday, and interestingly, these people have been poached from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Microsoft">Microsoft</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Google+">Google </a>and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Amazon">Amazon</a>. 
 You heard that right. As per the news reports, <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> has hired <keyword id="2950432" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dan-Rawson">Dan Rawson</keyword> as customer logistics and supply chain ecosystems head, <keyword id="3066857" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ravi-Byakod">Ravi Byakod</keyword> as director of engineering – accounting and <keyword id="3066858" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anand-Lakshminarayanan">Anand Lakshminarayanan</keyword> as the head of product management for digital goods and services. 
 As said earlier, these three are former employees of <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword>, <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> and <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword>. Rawson was the general manager of fulfilment for North America at Amazon headquarters in Seattle and at Flipkart, he will take care of all aspects of customer delivery solutions, leading product, business and operations teams. Rawson, who holds a graduate degree from the <keyword id="97117" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harvard-University">Harvard University</keyword> and an MBA from Northwestern University, is also a former captain in the US Marines. 
 
Byako, a former Google employee will lead the accounting technology for Flipkart. He had spent more than nine years in Google and was the head of engineering fort Google for Work's technology and solutions team developing data warehouses, customer relationship management programs, and partner engineering solutions out of its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Alumni of University of Alabama, Byako holds an MS in computer architecture. 
 
Peeyush Ranjan, CTO and head of engineering at Flipkart says, “Ravi's background in building large-scale distributed systems will enable us to develop a flexible accounting platform on new architecture at scale." 
 
Lakshminarayanan, who will lead the expansion of Flipkart's digital product offerings, has been working with Microsoft in Hyderabad, as principal group program manager of applications and services, leading the product team responsible for MSN Sports, MSN Money and MSN Health &amp; Fitness for mobile devices and the web worldwide.

Flipkart hires three tech experts from Amazon, Google and Microsoft

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/48264627.cms" /> 
Experience counts. Indian start ups have realized the benefits of recruiting a seasoned executive in the team. The first three Indian startups with a valuation of $ 1 billion - Flipkart, Snapdeal and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Uber-testing-cash-on-deliverymodel-in-Hyderabad-May-roll-out-in-other-cities-soon/articleshow/47245769.cms">Ola</a> having become giants in terms of revenue are relying largely on seasoned executives in key roles, as per a news report by The Economic Times. 
 
Having brought Krishnendu Chaudhury and Ravi Garikipati on board from the Silicon Valley, Flipkart is aiming high in terms of employee’s satisfaction and ambition. 
 
Meanwhile, Peeyush Ranjan, Flipkart's new head of engineering, has started a programme called <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/This-is-where-Flipkart-is-transferring-hundreds-of-its-employees/articleshow/47655386.cms">F24 to fix any problem that engineers face within 24 hours</a>, be it malfunctioning laptops, access to libraries or whatever. "As the organisation gets bigger it has an inherent challenge to stay nimble, and not get bogged down," Ranjan who previously led the engineering group for Google's Android One project told ET. 
 
Aneesh Passi, cofounder of Basil Advisors, which hires for startups, said, "These people (seasoned executives) know massive distribution set ups. They have seen huge scale, managed huge turnovers... that's why companies want to hire them." 
 
Passi, added that the unicorn startups, which have joined $1 billion club, "have the funding now, so they have pressed the accelerator". Ola Cabs too is betting on experienced hands as it looks <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Uber-testing-cash-on-deliverymodel-in-Hyderabad-May-roll-out-in-other-cities-soon/articleshow/47245769.cms">to stay ahead of rival Uber that has started accepting cash payments</a> in certain cities and is making deeper forays into tier two cities, says the news report by the financial daily. 
 
To that end, Ola is relying on its head of new initiatives, Sundeep Sahni, to replicate his success in making Lazada the number one ecommerce portal in Indonesia in his previous stint. "Going deeper in existing markets and creating newer and wider use cases is going to be critical," said Sahni, who joined Ola in mid-July. 
 
"On the functional side, Ola has got its rough edges. Since we are in the business of on demand, if you can remove a fraction of the second, it makes a big difference," Singh, who joined the firm after his five-year-stint at travel portal Cleartrip.com told ET. 
Snapdeal has hired Jeyandran Venugopal, a former Yahoo India executive, to prepare its future technology roadmap and got on board experienced executives to head its strategy and product divisions. 
 
"In ecommerce, only small strides have been made. There is a lot that they can learn from other industries in terms of customer service," Jayant Sood of Snapdeal told the financial daily. "True focus is now coming into digital commerce. My mandate is to transform customer experience and aim to be the best in customer service across industries."

Flipkart, Snapdeal and Ola drive up demand for ‘experienced’ executives in startups

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/47655401.cms" /> <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> transferred more than 300 middle and lower-level employees, mainly from the technology, payments, cataloguing and seller teams, to the rolls of business process outsourcing firm Serco, primarily to pare operational liabilities. 

	"Flipkart's decision to outsource few roles is a strategic move which will help us scale faster and also grow the partner ecosystem around us," a company spokesman said in an email reply. "We believe that realigning the organisation to business priorities is critical for keeping pace with the dynamic environment that we operate in." 
 

	Transferring out noncore employees to the payrolls of a back-office outsourcing company is common practice in the information technology industry. 
 "When a company has too many people on its payroll, it gets difficult to handle from the compliance perspective," said <keyword id="2497542" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vaibhav-Parikh">Vaibhav Parikh</keyword>, partner at law firm Nishith Desai Associates. "For example, PF, insurance, gratuity, etc., takes a lot of effort from the HR perspective." Businesswise, too, such shifting out of personnel offers several advantages. "Once employees are on an outsourced payroll, they don't appear in the books of the company and, in turn, the revenue-per-employee is much higher, which is an important metric for companies," Parikh said. 

	Such outsourced employees also don't get stock options, experts said. That the transfers at Flipkart have happened amid a run of high-profile hires seems to be causing some consternation among employees. 

	"Executives have been asked to shift to this new agency right ahead of the appraisal cycle," said an employee who was informed on Thursday about his transfer to Serco, India's thirdlargest BPO. "Mostly these are executives in the lower- to mid-level management," he said, requesting anonymity. Flipkart said it has "rolled out a generous financial package, including a salary hike, for each one of them."
 The company has made several strategic hires in recent months including from <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword>, to build new capabilities and establish its dominance in a sector fast overcrowding: Former <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> product head <keyword id="278552" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Punit-Soni">Punit Soni</keyword> to head the products division under its commerce platform; former McKinsey director Saikiran Krishnamurthy as the chief operating officer of its commerce division; former head of engineering at Google, Peeyush Ranjan, as senior vice president; and earlier this week. 

	But it also needs to be leaner and nimbler to be able to effectively take on new startups as well as giants like Snapdeal and Amazon that are competing for the same target buyers. Flipkart employs about 33,000 people. 

	 
	 
	(image credits: Reuters)

This is where Flipkart is transferring hundreds of its employees

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/47641486.cms" />Domestic eCommerce company <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> has appointed <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> veteran <keyword id="2894306" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ravi-Garikipati">Ravi Garikipati</keyword> for a newly-created role of <keyword id="2896625" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Entrepreneur-In-Residence">Entrepreneur in Residence</keyword> to help the India's most valuable Internet company to grow its nascent online advertising business, according to an ET report. Here we will tell you what does Entrepreneur in Residence means. It is a position in a <keyword id="6357097" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="venture-capital">venture capital</keyword> firm which is temporary and informal. The position is created when an organizations brings in an entrepreneur, who is in the process of starting or expanding a new company. "This is the first time such a role is being created and the possibilities that open up for the future are immense," <keyword id="225032" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Sachin-Bansal">Sachin Bansal</keyword>, the group CEO of Flipkart, said in a statement announcing the appointment on Thursday. 

	Garikipati, who comes to Flipkart after stints as head of Silicon Valley-based [24]7 Innovation Labs and software maker Vendio, has to work closely with cofounders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal as well as the company's head of commerce Mukesh Bansal.
 

	The IT industry veteran's first assignment will be to grow the online advertising division, a new line of business that Flipkart is chasing since it re-organised its operations earlier this year. 
 

	Mukesh, 39, is now the head of commerce while Sachin has moved away from daily operations to lead new initiatives including advertisements. 
 

	Binny who co-founded the Bengaluru-based company along with Sachin, has oversight of supply chain and logistics. 
 Experts are of the view that Flipkart has little choice but to create new lines of business, a strategy that has worked well for both <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword> and <keyword id="302749" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Alibaba">Alibaba</keyword>, as the basic business of online retail is not a profitable one. "They need people who can activate (new ideas) and drive them forward. (It) makes sense for them to find someone to run this internally," said an investor, who did not wish to be identified. 

	According to Guhesh Ramanathan, co-founder of seed incubator Excubator, "On one hand it has the M&amp;A team scouting for startups. On the other hand, I think Flipkart is trying to put together an intrapreneurship piece in the company, to motivate smaller teams to do something innovative." 
 

	In the last few months, Flipkart has made several strategic hirings, including that of Punit Soni, a former head of products at Google, and Saikiran Krishnamurthy, earlier a director at consulting firm McKinsey, who is now the chief operating officer of Flipkart's commerce division. Also, Peeyush Ranjan, from Google, is now a senior vice-president at Flipkart. 

	 
	(Image: Indiatimes)

Flipkart now has an 'Entrepreneur in Residence'!

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/47185566.cms" />Newly appointed Chief Product Officer of <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>, <keyword id="278552" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Punit-Soni">Punit Soni</keyword>, is on a mission. He wants India’s largest e-Commerce player to become global tech powerhouse and also a company to have the best talent from across the globe in coming years. 
 
Soni, who launched various products for Google during his eight-year stint and helped Motorola Mobility turnaround, is back in India after spending his entire professional career in the US and is on the job. 
 
While talking to Times of India, Soni said he is coming to the future with a focus on enhancing Flipkart’s mobile Commerce experience, adding consumers should expect changes on mobile front soon. 
 For this, he is scanning the world for talent. 
 
"We are focusing on getting amazing talent which is global in nature. Now we are at an inflection point and the world is looking at India as the big opportunity. Just like younger start-ups look up to Flipkart as a role model, now I want Flipkart to do the next thing — bring large number of people from across the globe to work here and live happily, both professionally and personally. This should then seep into the rest of the ecosystem. I think it will happen, it's just about us evolving ourselves into a more thoughtful international employer than an Indian employer," Soni told TOI. 
 
Soni along with another Google veteran Peeyush Ranjan would tap into talent from Silicon Valley’s tech giants like Google. 
 
Flipkart is now focussing on mobile, as outlined by co-owner Sachin Bansal, and seeks to downsize its legacy as a desktop-driven player. 
 
"The conversation is what truly a true mobile commerce experience is— no one has really cracked it yet," Soni said. "Today any mobile app is basically a website condensed into a small little phone with some ability to tap and swipe. Now compare that to the idea of shopping. I'm trying to build what is a true mobile commerce experience. If I can build that up in any geography, it is here in India," he told the news daily. 
 
The e-Commerce company also sees mobile start-ups as a huge challenge. 
 
“We are watchful of these younger start-ups. It is a challenge. I understand that disruption most likely comes from a smaller start-up. Their ability to do things is phenomenal and that is what makes them the prime disruptor of large companies,” Soni added. 
 
Flipkart and fashion online retailer Myntra, which it acquired last year, have been pushing their mobile applications as smartphone penetration in India skyrockets. TOI reported that Myntra planned to its website with Flipkart following the same as the online retailers morph into pure-play mobile outfits.

Techies, this is your chance. Flipkart is looking for talent across the globe

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/563a1bd6bd86ef1c008c71e3-2667-2000/surojitchatterjee2647.jpg" alt="Surojit Chatterjee" data-mce-source="Google" />GoogleSurojit Chatterjee</div></div></div>Indian ecommerce company Flipkart just poached 8.5-year Google veteran Surojit Chatterjee to be its SVP of consumer experience and growth, and a new pair of sneakers had a little something to do with it.Chatterjee started at Google as the head of payments products for Asia Pacific back in 2007, and bounced around to several different roles for the next 8 years, including, most recently, directing product management for mobile search ads. His various positions all involved mobile, giving him front-row seats to the company's explosive growth in that area.One of his most impactful projects spearheaded mobile conversions: finding ways to show marketers how their cell phone ads translated into actual store visits. Chatterjee says that he views Google as a "transformational" company, one that changed not just an entire industry but countless lives, too. He wouldn't want work somewhere where he didn't see that opportunity.That's where the shoes come in.Chatterjee's parents live in India, and once, on a business trip, he paid a visit to their house, about 30 miles outside the nearest city. His father, an athlete who still runs 5 miles every day at 76, needed a new pair of sneakers. To get them, though, he would have to weave through insane traffic on his trek to the city and essentially waste a whole day traveling to the city and back.But Chatterjee simply popped out his cellphone and ordered his father a pair of shoes online. His father had never seen or heard of mobile commerce. Yet after they bought the shoes Sunday afternoon, and received them by Monday, Chatterjee's father felt converted. He called up his son, unable to contain his delight. Even though Chatterjee had been talking to mobile ecommerce companies for years to try to convince them to buy Google ads, seeing its potential to change his dad's life by saving him long and arduous trips outside his home touched him in a "very fundamental way," he says."It was a big personal realization," Chatterjee tells Business Insider. "Mobile commerce has the power to truly revolutionize how Indian consumers live. It was very powerful."He's not the first Google exec Flipkart has nabbed in the last year. Since March, the popular ecommerce company has poached e<a href="http://recode.net/2015/04/08/why-flipkart-indias-amazon-rival-just-hired-another-top-google-exec/">ngineering exec Peeyush Ranjan</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-veteran-punit-soni-joins-indian-amazon-competitor-flipkart-2015-3">Motorola exec Punit Soni</a>, and <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-08-21/news/65706490_1_flipkart-dst-global-tiger-global">data science exec Mayur Datar</a>.The well-funded Flipkart has become one of the top five websites in India, where it's battling against giants like Snapdeal and Amazon, which has continued to try to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-growth-in-india-2015-7">dominate the country's burgeoning ecommerce industry</a> since CEO Jeff Bezos vowed to invest $2 billion there last year. But Chatterjee isn't scared of Amazon."The combination of [Flipkart's] vision, the leadership they have in the market, the vision, and the team will go a long way," Chatterjee says. Punit Soni, one of the other former Google execs, tells Business Insider via email that he is "very excited" about the new addition to the team:"He will be a key part of the product team and will help take our consumer experiences go the next level. With Eric Lange (Yahoo), Dan Rawson Ram Papatla (Amazon), Anand Lakshminarayanan (Microsoft), and now Surojit coming in, I am confident we have the best product team this side of the ocean."Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/electric-stair-climbing-wheelchair-college-students-zurich-switzerland-scalevo-2015-10">College students created an electric wheelchair that can actually climb stairs</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="syM2JheDptcebhSIkIXEMJGwqZvQVYMn" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'syM2JheDptcebhSIkIXEMJGwqZvQVYMn',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

A longtime Google vet just joined one of Amazon's biggest competitors in India thanks in part to a pair of sneakers

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/52122908.cms" /> 
Indian <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=e-commerce&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">e-commerce</a> has been a playground of contradictions, with a bundle of contrasting market data and a dash of controversial media reports. Each company has fuelled the confusion with data on traffic, number of users and GMV. 
 
Business Insider lists the 5 things that went wrong with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a>: 
 
Gross Market Value (GMV) and Discounting Deep discounts have been the biggest attraction of Indian e-retailers over the last few years, with the focus solely being on growth. Every online retailer has spent heavily to fund discounts to win customers. In the year that ended March 2015, the cumulative loss of <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>, <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> and Amazon India stood at Rs. 5,000 crores with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a> posting a loss of Rs. 2000 crores and Snapdeal reporting a loss of Rs 1,328 crores. 
 
“It was pure greed. Everybody wanted a bigger piece of the market share. The idea was that the winner will take it all”, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Sanjay+Sethi&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Sanjay Sethi</a>, co-founder, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ShopClues&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">ShopClues</a> says. 
 
This cash burn also held up GMV figures, which was considered the single most important metric for growth. Take that away, the valuation falls, and ‘growth’ suddenly seems stagnant. However, when you have deep pockets and big stakes, you’d want to be a whale. Problem is, when do you stop? 
 
“It’s not the company’s choice. If somebody else walks in, and you take it (the discount) off, you lose market share”, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Vijay+Shekhar+Sharma&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Vijay Shekhar Sharma</a>, founder-CEO, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Paytm&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Paytm</a> says. 
 In April this year, the government allowed 100% <keyword id="44528" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="FDI">FDI</keyword> in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=e-commerce&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">e-commerce</a>. However, the most disturbing feature in the policy was the bar on discounting. This has forced every player to re-consider their business models. 
 
As a senior <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a> official requesting anonymity puts it, “Binny’s (Bansal) going deep into the commerce side, looking at every category and asking the right questions. You can be profitable at a gross level, but certain categories might still lose money. He’s focusing on how to sell better on Flipkart.” 
 
High Cost Machine 
While the initial race to shoot up GMV and touch a billion dollar valuation has receded, every player is left with a high-cost machinery, with soaring operational costs. 
 
Earlier this week, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a> co-founder and Executive Chairman <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Sachin+Bansal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Sachin Bansal</a> hinted at a tough financial climate. He maintained almost every Internet company around the world goes through it, and they’ll try and raise as much capital possible, but on their own terms. 
 
However, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ShopClues&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">ShopClues</a> co-founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Sanjay+Sethi&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Sanjay Sethi</a> thinks the slack performance of the segment-leaders is a factor to their current woes. “Investors are rethinking about businesses that haven’t shown a clear path to profitability. There’s clearly a slowdown, but it’s not a long term thing”, Sethi says. 
 While there have been reports of the Snapdeal-Flipkart duo struggling to raise money at their current valuation since June 2015, the <keyword id="6357120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="PayTM">Paytm</keyword> founder thinks most companies can live with their current cash burn rates. 
 
“I don’t know a company that cannot sustain for the next two years. Also, specific companies may have their own concerns and issues, but people are putting in money”, he says. 
 
Losing Focus 
In a market as fragmented as India’s, no one brand has dominated categories like apparel and grooming. Too much inventory stocked for too long eats away profit margins. Some say the country's FDI policy forced these companies to potray themselves as marketplaces, while they were handline everything from warehousing to logistics. 
 
Retailing in itself has never made money, even for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Walmart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Walmart</a> at this scale. It’s always a 4-5% margin. That way, the marketplace model is profitable even in Amazon’s balance sheets. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ShopClues&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">ShopClues</a> founder thinks when you’re on a hybrid model; you compete against your sellers, and that hampers growth. 
 
“If you decide to take fashion as a marketplace model because there are too many sellers, and a certain brand is making more money, there’s the greed to have an inventory in the interest of better margins. That way you build distrust among sellers”, Sethi says. 
 
Combine huge stockpiles in warehouses, heavy discounting and 4-5% gross margins in some categories, and you have a business that makes zero sense at unit commerce level. You can either sell too many brands on a pure marketplace model, or select brands on an inventory model. Fire and water don't mix. 
 
The Paytm founder agrees. “It’s better to leave merchandising and fashion trends to retailers. When I see these companies building private labels, it makes me uncomfortable personally.” 
 
Some steps proved costly 
The idea of going app-only proved to be a big distraction for Flipkart and Myntra. Flipkart’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Big+Billion+Day+sale&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Big Billion Day sale</a> went app only last October, and reversed its decision for its Republic Day sale this January. 
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Peeyush+Ranjan&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Peeyush Ranjan</a>, head of engineering at Flipkart agrees not many people install the app. "Websites push users to install the app. But only 4% of the people actually install the app", he says. 
 
While the company’s brave attempt to try something new must be lauded, it made little business sense. “Companies are fighting over 2-3% market share. It made no sense to leave 10% of your users and go app-only. That’s somebody not using the retail mindset”, Sethi says. 
 
Flipkart still maintains it was always mobile-first, and never app-only for them, and it all got misconstrued. Amar Nagaram, VP, Mobile Engineering, Flipkart says, “We never quite stopped our efforts for mobile web. We actually pushed browser companies to offer a better experience.” 
 
In a country with low credit card penetration, both Snapdeal and Flipkart ventured into mobile payments a bit too late. Flipkart now has its WSR Wallet and Snapdeal made way for the FreeCharge Wallet, but Paytm's Wallet services were way ahead. The Softbank-led company now allows its users to book Uber rides globally, and will soon let them shop on investor Alibaba's B2C portal. 
 
Lure of the Market Everybody agrees the fundamentals of <keyword id="35621" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="e-commerce">e-commerce</keyword> in India are very strong. Every other report brings on huge growth and market size figures. True, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=e-commerce&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">e-commerce</a> currently only accounts for 2% of the total market, and there is enough room for growth. 
 
The recent report by CIII and Deloitte India peg India’s business to consumer (B2C) segment will grow more than seven times to $101.9 billion and the number of online shoppers will grow over 10 times to 220 million in 2020. 
 
However, most data thrown around by e-commerce companies has been one big hogwash. App installs don’t count for traffic, number of active users doesn’t count for real transactions, and high GMV doesn’t count for profits. That’s why Flipkart’s 50 million app installs must be taken with a pinch of salt. 
 
“If only Snapdeal and Flipkart tone down their expectations, they could build fabulous businesses”, Retail Consultancy firm Technopak MD Arvind Singhal says. 
 
P.S: Snapdeal refused to comment, despite several requests.

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