All about Flipkart - The Online Magastore

It was meant to be a portal that compared different e-commerce websites. From a two-member embryonic idea to a 4,500-member company, the Flipkart story is not just about stupendous success and mind-numbing numbers.

Much more than that, it's about redefining customer experience and breaking online shopping inertia. Started in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the Bangalore-based firm ships close to 30,000 items per day. Or, in other words, 20 products per minute.

Flipkart is really an online megastore, with a most advance product search bar. ( try it for yourself below ) Flipkart in June 2013 had raised $200 million in its fifth round of venture funding from existing investors Naspers, Accel and Tiger Global. It is by far the largest funding raised by any Indian ecommerce company, adding up to $380 million since Flipkart's inception in 2007. The Times of India reported it is in talks for another $100 million.

With an estimated $80 million unspent from its August 2012 funding of $150 million, Flipkart has $280 million before it needs more

cash. This gives it a 'cash runway' advantage compared to Jabong, Snapdeal or Myntra. Using recent estimates, the company has three to four years of runway left. Flipkart's objective will be to thwart Amazon and remain the dominant brand.

This will spell bad news for less-capitalised rivals who want to dominate their own spaces-Snapdeal (marketplaces), Myntra and Jabong (apparel). Flipkart is likely to build infrastructure services that can be hired out to competitors. Co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal have diluted their stakes to reportedly single digits and the company is being driven by investors.

It will be interesting to see how Tiger Global and Naspers, the two largest, plan to exit: An IPO or a sale to an international giant?

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Quick comparison between the Samsung GALAXY Note II vs Apple iPhone 5

Samsung GALAXY Note II enables unique experiences in personalized and expressive content creation, making it the ultimate smartphone for on-the-go creativity.

Apple's iPhone 5 is the biggest thing to happen since iPhone. Creating an entirely new design meant inventing entirely new technology.

Here's a quick comparison between the Samsung GALAXY Note II vs Apple iPhone 5.

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Facebook to buy drone maker Titan Aerospace for $60 million.

Recent online reports indicate that Facebook is in talks to buy drone maker Titan Aerospace for $60 million. Why would they do so ?
Well, Facebook might use these high-altitude flyers to beam down Web connections to isolated communities where internet is inaccessible.

Titan Aerospace's drones fly so high – up to 65,000 feet - that they can effectively operate as satellites with far lower operating costs powered by sunlight, which the company calls "atmospheric parking".

The Solara 50 and 60 models can carry up to 100kg of equipment, which is good enough to provide web connections.


Oddly, Facebook has some sky competition already. Google’s Project Loon is attempting to bring 3G-like networks to under served areas using balloons already.

Report Sources :Techcrunch, Telegraph

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Indian e-commerce giants one-day delivery services (comparision)

Online stores in India are now enjoying wide popularity.

The growing internet population. increasing access to internet and advertisements by online stores in various media including television are some of the factors that contribute to the overwhelming popularity of online stores now.

It all depends on how efficiently online stores work to draw more customers and retain existing customers.

Here’s how the e-commerce giants differ in one-day delivery services : A quick comparison on Flipkart Vs Amazon Vs Snapdeal Vs Tradus

Price

    Flipkart – 90 INR per item.
    Amazon – 99 per order for one-day delivery option and 79 per order for two-days delivery option.
    Snapdeal – Free
    Tradus – Free

Obviously, Snapdeal’s and Tradus’ free one-day delivery service is only for a limited time. They’ll start charging additional bucks soon.

Location

    Flipkart – Offers in 13 cities for. Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Noida, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Ghazidabad, Faridabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Nagpur. Will expand to other cities soon.
    Amazon – Offers in selected pincodes. The cities include Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune.
    Snapdeal – Offers in Delhi and Gurgaon for now.
    Tradus – Offers in Delhi and NCR for now. Other cities to join the list soon.

Products available

    Flipkart – All products on Flipkart are eligible for In-a-day delivery service.
    Amazon – All Fulfilled by Amazon products are eligible. No minimum purchase.
    Snapdeal – As of now, only some products are eligible for this delivery option and such products are marked with an yellow tag on the website.
    Tradus – Only on mobiles and tablets.

Cut-off time

    Flipkart – You’ll have to place the order before 6 pm to receive the product the next day.
    Amazon – Cut-off time is till midnight for Mumbai and Pune. The cut-off time is 3 pm for other pincodes.
    Snapdeal – You’ll have to place the order before 1 pm.
    Tradus – No reports on that.

Logistics used

    Flipkart – Flipkart has it’s own logistics operation. So, it’s easy for Flipkart to ship the brought immediately.
    Amazon – Amazon’s recently tied-up with India Post and guaranteed one-day delivery works well for Amazon too.
    Snapdeal – Uses third party logistics to ship the product.
    Tradus – Uses third party logistics to ship the product.

Snapdeal and Tradus are in a tough position because they’ll have to work a lot in the back-end with the third party logistics partners to make the delivery on time.
Payment options

    Flipkart – All payment options are available, including cash on delivery (COD)
    Amazon – All payment options are available, including COD.
    Snapdeal – No reports on payment modes. But, my guess is that all payment options should be available.
    Tradus – All payment options are available, including COD.

Refunds

    Flipkart – For COD, additional delivery charge will be collected as per the order, but will be refunded to your Flipkart wallet.
    Amazon – Automatic refund of the shipping charges if the product is not delivered as promised.
    Tradus – No reports on refunds

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How does Facebook store tons of user profile data?

Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site in the world today with up to 250,000 new users being added every day.

But ever thought How does Facebook store and retrive this massive amount of data? Well, heres the answer..
  Facebook wants new designs for storage and other equipment that are more energy efficient. Its year-old project to create open source hardware for data centers got a major boost when a whole bunch of big players joined including HP, AMD, Fidelity, Quanta, Salesforce.com, VMware and Canonical.


But there's a catch. Companies that participate have to agree to "open source" their designs and make them available for free to anyone that wants them.

Well we get a feeling that Facebook's goal here is to do for hardware what Linux did for software. That means create open source hardware where users are calling the shots, not just hardware vendors.

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Project Loon - Google's Wi-Fi balloon experiment

Google Lab, which came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses was working from the past 18 months on what Google calls 'Project Loon'. Google launches giant balloons over New Zealand's south Island, carrying computer equipment that can create a high-speed internet infrastructure

If successful, the technology might allow countries to leapfrog the expense of laying fiber cable, dramatically increasing Internet usage in places such as Africa and Southeast Asia.

The fully solar powred balloon fly free and out of eyesight. Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles).



The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn’t have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites.

Google in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.

 Google itself also stands to benifit as it expand its own empire by bringing Internet to the masses: More users means more potential Google searchers, which in turn give the company more chances to display their lucrative ads..

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