In the Indian e-commerce industry, Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart have been arch-rivals. While Flipkart holds the top spot when it comes to the Indian e-commerce scene, Amazon is not far behind. There are some areas where Amazon strays ahead of Flipkart owing to its Prime service. To compete with which Flipkart had recently introduced its Flipkart Plus Premium services. However, these services did not offer video streaming or anything related, which is what Flipkart is seeking to fill now. The e-commerce giant is looking ahead to giving a fight to Amazon by introducing its own video streaming platform which will be free for its Plus customers and Flipkart is likely to launch it before Diwali.
Flipkart Seeks to Go Head First into Video Market
It is worth noting that the Indian video streaming industry is worth Rs 4,462 crore and Flipkart will finally be foraying into it. In the past few years, the industry has also seen massive growth and even now continues to grow at a fast pace. Also, crucial to note is the fact that Amazon and Flipkart Plus have the faster shipping and exclusive deals in common, but the latter was missing out on the video and music part.
As per the source aware of the matter, Flipkart said to Money Control, “Video was missing, and we will have it soon,” he further added, “Video has its own merits in a country that lives and breathes cinema.” On the other hand, the closest competitor, Amazon Prime Video, is doubling down its efforts on the platform by introducing new originals and exclusive shows. The Prime Video platform by Amazon was launched by the e-commerce giant back in December 2016 in India, and since then it has garnered 13 million users as per the research firm Redseer. This figure is also more than 10% of Amazon Prime’s total user base.
Service to Remain Free for Flipkart Plus Members
Also to attract new eyeballs to its platforms, Flipkart might take help of Bollywood, and it will serve video on demand to Plus customers free of cost. To become a Plus member, a Flipkart buyer has to collect 300 Super coins or reward points. Every Flipkart member gets 2 reward points for Rs 100 of purchase. A Plus member gets faster delivery and can use the reward points to purchase more goods from Flipkart or its 100 partner companies like Zomato, OYO and MakeMyTrip.
A second source aware of the matter said, “Why should someone have separate apps to shop and watch movies… Video is just another service.” The source also added that video would create stickiness, and the aim will be to drive shoppers through video to the store, which is exactly what Amazon does. The strategy has worked in the US for Amazon, where 26 million people consume Amazon Prime video content. Flipkart, when enters the video market will also have to be manoeuvring through the competition being posed by other apps like Hotstar, ZEE5, MX Player and more.
