Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce refers to transactions between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Flipkart is a major Indian e-commerce company that started as a B2B marketplace but now also sells directly to consumers. It has acquired several other companies to expand its offerings and raise funding from investors. To better serve business customers, Flipkart launched payment and delivery services tailored for B2B transactions. The conclusion emphasizes investing in the customer experience across channels including mobile, courting omni-channel customers, and taking a broad view of competition from across the supply chain.

1. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FASHION TECHNOLOGY
E-Commerce assignment
MODEL Topic-BUSINESS TO BUSINESS FOR FLIPKART
SUBMITTED TO :- SUBMITTED BY:-
DR. RAGHURAM JAYARAMAN Sunanda Ghorai
Shreya Chaudhary
Shubham Pratap Singh

2. WHAT IS B2B?
Business-to-business (B2B) describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as
between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer. Contrasting
terms are business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-government (B2G). B2B branding is a
term used in marketing.
On the Internet, B2B (business-to-business), also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products,
services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.
Although early interest centered on the growth of retailing on the Internet (sometimes called e-
tailing), forecasts have predicted that B2B revenue will soon far exceed business-to-
consumers(B2C) revenue.
B2B websites can be sorted into the following categories:
 Company websites. The target audience of many company sites is other companies and their
employees. These sites can be thought of as round-the-clock mini-trade exhibits. Sometimes, a
company website serves as the entrance to an exclusive extranet, available only to customers
or registered site users. Some company sites sell directly from the site, effectively e-tailing to
other businesses.
 Product supply and procurement exchanges. These are exchanges in which a company
purchasing agent can shop for supplies from vendors, request proposals and, in some cases,
bid to make a purchase at a desired price. Sometimes referred to as e-procurement sites, some
serve a range of industries, while others focus on a niche market.
 Specialized or vertical industry portals. These portals provide a "sub-web" of information,
product listings, discussion groups and other features. Vertical portal sites have a broader
purpose than procurement sites (although they may also support buying and selling).
 Brokering sites. These sites act as an intermediary between providers and potential customers
that need their specific services, such as equipment leasing.
 Information sites. Sometimes known as infomediaries, these sites provide information about a
particular industry to its companies and their employees. Information sites include specialized
search sites and those of trade-and-industry-standards organizations.
Many B2B sites fall into more than one of these groups. Models for B2B sites are still evolving.
Another type of B2B enterprise is software for building B2B websites, including site-building
tools and templates, database and methodologies, as well as transaction software.

3. Buying behaviour in a B2B environment
Some characteristics of organizational buying / selling behaviour in detail:
 For consumer brands the buyer is an individual. In B2B there are usually committees of people
in an organization and each of the members may have different attitudes towards any brand. In
addition, each party involved may have different reasons for buying or not buying a particular
brand.
 Since there are more people involved in the decision making process and technical details may
have to be discussed in length, the decision-making process for B2B products is usually much
longer than in B2C.
 Companies seek long-term relationships as any experiment with a different brand will have
impacts on the entire business. Brand loyalty is therefore much higher than in consumer goods
markets.
 While consumer goods usually cost little in comparison to B2B goods, the selling process
involves high costs. Not only is it required to meet the buyer numerous times, but the buyer may
ask for prototypes, samples and mock ups. Such detailed assessment serves the purpose of
eliminating the risk of buying the wrong product or service.

4. Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company founded in 2007, by Sachin and Binny Bansal and
headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It is considered as the e-commerce company that made
online shopping popular in India. According to Alexa Internet, Flipkart's website is one of the
top 10 Indian websites. Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name "DigiFlip",
offering camera bags, pen-drives, headphones, computer accessories, etcFlipkart acquired the
websites Mime360.com and Chakpak.com. Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its
new Flyte Digital Music Store. Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of iTunes and
Amazon.com, offered DRM-free MP3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid
song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.

5. Acquisitions
 2010: We read , a social book discovery tool.
 2011: Mime360, a digital content platform company.
 2011: Chakpak.com, a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos.
Flipkart acquired the rights to Chakpak's digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies,
10,000 movies and close to 50,000 ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be
involved with the original site and will not use the brand name.
 2012: Letsbuy.com, an Indian e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an
estimated US$25 million. Letsbuy.com was closed down and all traffic to Letsbuy have been
diverted to Flipkart.
 2014: Acquired Myntra.com in an estimated INR 2,000 crore deal.
FLIPKART FUNDING:
The founders had spent 40,000,00 only for making website to set up the business.Flipkart has
later raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India (US$1 million in 2009) and Tiger
Global (US$10 million in 2010 and US$20 million in June 2011). Flipkart announced the completion
of its 4th round of $150 million funding from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and ICONIQ Capital. The
company has raised an additional $200 million from existing investors including Tiger Global,
Naspers, Accel Partners and Iconiq Capital.
BUSINESS MODEL:

7. Payments:
Flipkart has launched a payment gateway service called Pay Zippy for Indian merchants, pushing
competition in the online payments industry which has incumbents like CCAvenue , Pay TM, PayU, Citrus
and others.
PayZippy Details:
PayZippy provides APIs for Charging, Transaction Status Query and Refunds (including partial refunds)
With PayZippy, you can start accepting payments from all Credit & Debit Cards (MasterCard, Visa,
Maestro). The other modes like Netbanking etc will be available later.

8. Once you have shared all the requisite documents, it usually takes ten working days to go-live.
With that product, consumers will be able to save their card details in their PayZippy account. They will
then be able to use this saved card for transactions on merchant websites without having to type or share
sensitive card details. Flipkart had earlier acquired PCI DSS certification to be able to store customers
card details.
The PayZippy closure is linked to Flipkart’s recent investment into mobile payments company Ngpay
(Next Generation Pay)
CARD SWIPE ON DELIVERY:
Flipkart realized that most of its customers are not comfortable in sharing their credit card details online.
For solving this problem swipe on delivery. it came up with the idea of card

9. Delivery:
CONCLUSION
With large, global e-commerce brands like Amazon and
Alibaba zeroing in on the B2B space, businesses have no
time to spare when it comes to developing and improving
the B2B commerce experience they deliver to their
customers.
 Invest aggressively in the B2B customer experience.
Forget about trying to match your competitors’ omni-channel
customer experiences. Who cares what they’re doing
 Prioritize mobile. We shouldn’t ignore the importance of
mobile as an integral part of your brand’s next-generation, omni-
channel commerce strategy. Enhanced mobile commerce
opportunities are emerging at a rapid pace. For example, B2B

10. brands that prioritize the mobile channel can offer in-the-field
sales opportunities and personalized customer service
possibilities that are impossible to deliver without a mobile-
heavy commerce strategy. Forrester found that 52% of B2B
customers are using smartphones to research products for their
businesses, this is a wake-up call.
 Court omni-channel B2B customers. Approximately 80
percent of B2B firms that currently sell direct to customers
online identified omni-channel customers as “profitable”
compared to 57 percent of online-only customers and 53 percent
of offline-only customers.
 Broaden your view of the competition. Stop thinking of
your competition as just your direct competitors. More than ever
before, stakeholders across the entire B2B supply chain
(distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers) are all selling directly
to customers.