E-commerce major Flipkart, has launched its own private label ‘DigiFlip’, reports Pluggd.in. The report states that through this brand, Flipkart currently retails electronic accessories like camera accessories, computer accessories, laptop bags and sleeves among others and plans to foray into other categories in the digital accessories section. The company hopes to sell 25% to 30% of its overall digital accessories inventory through DigiFlip by the end of this fiscal.
At the time of writing this article, Flipkart offered 19 products in its DigiFlip label and according to a note on the website, the company said that it directly sources these products from its trusted manufacturing partners, and claimed that it had designed these products based on its in-depth understanding of online shoppers over the last few years, and to address the specific needs of its customers. That being said, there is currently no dedicated section for these products nor is it being promoted anywhere on the website except for product pages of DigiFlip products.
Interestingly though, Flipkart seems to have booked Digiflip.in domain, as pointed out by a reader on the Pluggd.in report. Note that MediaNama is unable to verify any of the claims but the domain’s whois record reflects that Sachin Bansal, Co-founder and CEO of Flipkart.com has registered the domain. The domain is currently a parked page at the time of writing this article.
Moving towards a better profitability model? After gaining significant traction among users in the country, it seems like Flipkart has been taking several measures to possibly improve its margins and profitability. The product prices on the portal are no longer deeply discounted, the company launched its digital music store Flyte where the margins are higher than those for physical purchases. Flipkart had claimed that Flyte had registered over 100,000 downloads in the first month of its launch and it is yet to add e-books, games and video content to its digital store as per the company’s digital strategy stated by co-founder and COO Binny Bansal earlier this year.
Earlier in the month, Flipkart had also hiked its minimum order value for free delivery to Rs 300, as indicated by a Times Of India report. The company had stated that this move will largely benefit the efficiencies in its supply chain, although it claimed that the hike was inconsequential to its customers and impacts less than 15% of them.
The launch of DigiFlip is possibly another measure to improve its profitability since the margins in private labels are higher and Flipkart will have full control over the entire production cycle of these products unlike other branded products it sells on the portal. According to a note on the website, the company claimed that DigiFlip will enable them to deliver products of great quality and reasonable prices.
Other Players: E-Commerce sites like the Tiger Global & SAIF Partners backed Zovi, Smile Interactive’s Freecultr and Zaheer Khan-backed Sher Singh are private label brands. Apparel, footwear and accessories focused e-commerce venture Myntra had stated last month that it was looking to launch its own private label by Q3 2012.
