Apropos the report "Flipkart beefs up to take on Amazon" (July 17), can we really term Flipkart's recent fund raising as a move to take on Amazon? Flipkart, from its days of inception, has followed more of a "step aside" strategy vis-a-vis Amazon rather than positioning itself as "taking on" Amazon. E-tailing, strictly speaking, in India is still at a pre-paradigmatic stage marked by strategic uncertainty (be it product or service standards, marketing, supply chain, pricing etc) and continues to draw a cautious approach by investors. The problem with an innovator like Flipkart, is its difficulty to get access to a vast array of complementary assets required to commercialise its technology and hence, is always in danger of succumbing to big players. This is the basis of a long-heard storyline of Amazon buying out Flipkart. While the Bansal duo deserves all the credit for not succumbing to big players like Amazon, the assumption of "brand" being the source of investors' confidence might appear illusive, particularly so in India where e-tail buyers are aggressively value conscious rather than looking for "newness" only. It is time that Flipkart created a compelling value tag giving a valid reason to customers to come and stay with it. If customers come and stay, investors surely will, but the converse is not true.
R K Mitra New Delhi
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