Flipkart wants to be more than just an e-retailer in India. The commerce site wants to make their own appliances while selling them on their platform. Its smartphone, Billion Capture+, is already retailing in the Indian market, and now, they want to bring in their own line of TVs and Air Conditioners.
Affordable ACs and smart TVs were unveiled by Flipkart at the CES 2018, in the US and it will be selling them under the MarQ brand. If you recall, MarQ is Flipkart’s consumer home appliances brand, launched in October last year. Currently, it sells microwave ovens, TVs, and washing machines.
Flipkart MarQ ACs and TV Availability and Features
Flipkart has launched four ACs under the MarQ InnoCool series and they will be available in India from April onwards. Whereas the 32-inch MarQ HDR smart TV will go on sale in May.
Coming to the MarQ ACs, Adarsh Menon, Flipkart’s Electronic Head, points out a few standout features. “There are two things that are disruptive about the AC – air purification because that’s a very important use case developing in India and the price will be very disruptive,” says Menon.
“Consumer durables are usually high-ticket items and consumers often tend to postpone the purchase to festive sale. That is what we want to change,” he told the media.
E-commerce players are tightening control
Introducing its home appliances will help Flipkart to regain more control over the electronic sales on its platform. This is perhaps a lesson they have learned from the changing dynamics of the smartphone market.
The Indian online market has seen a gradual shift over the past couple of years. Many smartphone brands that earlier managed making deep inroads via online retail chains are now focusing on offline distribution to reap higher profit margins, leaving an online void in the process.
As a result, electronics earnings, which was the major crowd puller for e-retailers, has shown a decline. And, it is not just Flipkart, Amazon is also facing the same issue. Recently, Amazon started a programme called ‘Crafted for Amazon‘ where it partners with OEMs to sell their phones exclusively on its platform.
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