ABSTRACT

The E-Commerce Industry being one of the fastest growing industries is the future of shopping.
Already a significant amount of customers has switched to online shopping in order to fulfil
their needs. For most of the people it is more convenient to buy online rather than physically
visiting the shops. Moreover, the social media platforms are becoming hot topics for E-
Commerce platforms like Flipkart, Amazon, etc. The benefits that social media platforms
provide to these platforms are enormous as they allow them to reach directly to the customers
allowing them to collect enormous amount of data which can be analysed to target right
customers at the right time. Flipkart being one of the largest players of the E-Commerce
industry in India is the topic of discussion.

Introduction to E-Commerce Industry

The e-commerce has transformed the way business is done in India. The Indian e-commerce
industry has been on an upward growth trajectory and is expected to grow at a Growth Rate of
28 per cent from 2016-20 to touch US$ 63.7 billion by 2020 and overtake the US by 2034.1
The sector reached US$ 14.5 billion in 2016. Exhibit 1 shows the growth of E-Commerce
industry in India.
Much growth of the industry has been triggered by increasing internet and smartphone
penetration. The ongoing digital transformation in the country is expected to increase India’s
total internet user base to 829 million by 2021 (59 per cent of total population), from 373
million (28 per cent of population) in 2016, while total number of networked devices in the
country are expected to grow to two billion by 2021, from 1.4 billion in 2016.

Market Size

Total online spending, inclusive of domestic and cross border shopping, is expected to increase
by 31 per cent year-on-year to US$ 135.8 billion by 2018. Cross border shopping by Indians
touched US$ 9.1 billion in 2016, and is expected to by 85 per cent year-on-year in 2017. The
top 3 countries preferred by Indians for cross-border shopping in 2016 were USA (14%), UK
(6%) and China (5%).
The Indian consumer internet market is expected to grow by 44 per cent year-on-year to touch
US$ 65 billion in 2017, up from US$ 45 billion in 2016. Online travel agents account for the
largest market share (70 per cent) in the internet consumer market, while the remaining 30 per
cent is occupied by horizontal e-tailing, fashion, furniture, grocery, hotel, food tech, cab
aggregators, education technology, and alternative lending among others.
The internet industry in India is likely to double to reach US$ 250 billion by 2020, growing to
7.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with the number of mobile internet users
growing to about 650 million and that of high-speed internet users reaching 550 million.5
About 70 per cent of the total automobile sales in India, worth US$ 40 billion, are expected to
be digitally influenced by 2020 as against US$ 18 billion in 2016.

Government initiatives

Since 2014, the Government of India has announced various initiatives namely, Digital India,
Make in India, Start-up India, Skill India and Innovation Fund. The timely and effective
implementation of such programs will likely support the e-commerce growth in the country.
Some of the major initiatives taken by the government to promote the e-commerce sector in
India are as follows:

 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to allow "inter-operability" among Prepaid
Payment Instruments (PPIs) such as digital wallets, prepaid cash coupons and prepaid
telephone top-up cards.
 Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley has proposed various measures to quicken India's
transition to a cashless economy, including a ban on cash transactions over US$
4,655.1, tax incentives for creation of a cashless infrastructure, promoting greater usage
of non-cash modes of payments, and making Aadhaar-based payments more
widespread.

FLIPKART
Flipkart was launched, Indian e-commerce industry was taking its beginner steps. The
company is registered in Singapore, but their headquarters are in the city of Bangalore,
India. Back at the time when Flipkart was launched, any e-commerce company faced two
major difficulties. One was the problem of online payment gateways. Not many people
preferred online payment and the gateways were not easy to set up. Flipkart tackled this
problem by introducing cash on delivery and payment by card on delivery in addition to
others. Flipkart was the first to implement the popular ‘Cash On Delivery’ facility, which
every online shopping website in India offers as an option today.

Flipkart also acquired few companies like Myntra.com, LetsBuy.com and many more to
better their presence in the market. Flipkart is the market leader in India’s online marketplace
with over 80 million products across more than 80 categories. Since 2009, Flipkart, valued at
US$ 11.6 billion as of April 2017, has raised over US$4 billion in 11 funding rounds. Flipkart
boasts of having 100 million users and 100 thousand sellers along with 21 warehouses. On
average, Flipkart has around 8 million shipments per month. In 2016, Flipkart became the first
Indian App to cross 50 million users. In April 2017, Flipkart raised US$ 1.4 billion from
Microsoft, eBay and Tencent and in August 2017, it raised US$ 2.5 billion from SoftBank.
With the entry of Amazon.com in India, the competition between the companies has seen
many takeovers. Flipkart managed to break the norm and change the ecommerce industry
in India for ever. Exhibit 3 shows the Flipkart’s funding from various investors.

Social Media Influence On E-Commerce Industry

Social media is now an integral part of almost every consumer’s online habits. Statistics abound
about its popularity and potential as a means of driving new visitors. Perhaps one of the biggest
trends last year was the inclusion of e-commerce in social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest. One of the major reasons for inclusion of commerce in
social media platforms is strong internet penetration across tier-I, tier-II and tier-III audience,
where availability of low-cost smartphones and low rates of data plans have played a pivotal
role in expanding the markets. This return to small commerce, with the help of social platforms,
will continue to play an important role for both- the networks and the retail industry. Staying
ahead of the curve, however, will clearly be defined by how e-commerce ventures experiment
and innovate to interact and connect with their customers.
The most obvious explanation behind this phenomenon is that social media is a free marketing
tool that allows companies to engage customers all over the world. TV ads, radio spots and
print media still play a role in modern advertising, but nothing beats free. Unlike its
predecessors, social media marketing operates on two-way communication. When delivering
your message via television or radio, you might have to wait months to see if your campaign
works. Social media allows for instantaneous input from users.
Equally important, that input is highly segmented by geography, demography and interest.
Fading are the days of generic advertisements on broadcast television. It is now possible to
A/B test highly individualized messages for equally individualized audiences. Social media
also benefits from a multiplier effect. With a click of the mouse, users can resend the original
"message" to thousands of friends or followers. One might have to spend millions of dollars to
create a memorable radio jingle, but a low-cost social media campaign can go viral overnight.
Because the referral is coming from friends and contacts, the message benefits from a level of
social proof that few corporate advertisements ever enjoy in the world of traditional print
media.

Social Media Influence on Flipkart

Customer service is where the core focus of Flipkart lies. Flipkart knows that as an ecommerce
platform, if there is anything that will keep it ahead of its competitors, it is customer service.
And be it offline or online, people gush about its lightning speed delivery. So much so that
Flipkart has gone ahead and created a Look What Flipkart Delivered Storify page mentioning
all the instances where its delivery made made the customers happy. And it’s one of the few
Indian brands which is actively using Google Plus.

Talking about Flipkart’s Facebook page, the content primarily revolves around latest
festivals/birthdays, Q&A updates and self-promotional posts. However, the lack of any
interesting content has led to a relatively low engagement rate for the page that has more than
1.2 million people in its community. Customer service is again at focus here. The team
handling the page tries to resolve every complaint that is posted on their timeline asap. There’s
also a well laid out Custom Tab just for Support. It’s a helpful tab where customers can come
and mention their grievances, share ideas and affirm their love for Flipkart. And it is fairly
active indeed. But one special mention goes to the team behind their cover photos. Every time
there’s something a celebrate, it is reflected in their cover photos. From birthdays, to seasons
to festivals, they have a brilliant creative team that comes up with some of the best cover photos
on Facebook. Flipkart also uses Facebook Exchanges that allow it to retain the customers that
show some signs of attrition. Exhibit 4 displays the user engagement for one month of the year
2016-17 on Facebook page of Flipkart. Exhibit 5 shows the means of engagement as well as
the engagement per user in percentage.

Facebook may be a little downer for Flipkart but their Twitter team is doing some significant
work. Thanks to some brilliant informal communication, they have managed to woo a lot of
people. Amongst the ecommerce sector, they probably have the largest Twitter community.
The updates are somewhat similar to Facebook but the real crux lies in how it responds to users.
Not only do they respond and resolve customer issues, they also enter into casual chit-chat with
their followers.

Moderately active on Google Plus, Flipkart updates it once a while its self-promotional.
Though it still boasts of a community with more than 12k people.

YouTube is another platform that allows Flipkart to bring customers on to its platform.
Flipkart uses the services offered by YouTube in following ways:
 Publicity and Promotions
 Sneak Peaks of products
 Advertisements
 Offers and Schemes

Conclusion

Social Media is ruling the world since last decade, but many people are still confused as to
what to do or what not to do on social media platform for their businesses. On one side, social
media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google + etc. helps in business expansion whereas on
the other side, if not done properly it may present a bad picture of the brand to the users which
can ultimately increase reputation concern. It is also necessary to understand which social
media network fits a particular business the most as per the business requirements. Although
social media currently influences the E-Commerce industry in a minimal way, but slowly and
gradually it is growing and will have a significant impact on the E-Commerce industry with
time.
EXHIBITS

Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3
Exhibit 4

Exhibit 5
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://blog.bluepay.com/the-impact-of-social-media-on-e-commerce
 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-impact-of-social-media-on-e-commerce
 https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-
analytics/social-media-ecommerce/
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232656460_The_Effects_of_Social_Medi
a_on_E-Commerce_A_Perspective_of_Social_Impact_Theory_PDF
 https://www.ibef.org/industry/ecommerce.aspx
 www.wikipedia.com