Increasing customer frequency to Flipkart app is key, says CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy

Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy .

Flipkart is planning to address its customer velocity problem, aiming to boost user frequency on the app by introducing bundled products such as financial services. The e-commerce giant aims to transform into a commerce company, shifting from being solely an e-commerce entity.

“If you just look at the gap between the people who bought once, which is let's say 500 million versus people who buy monthly, there is a massive opportunity there. A lot of our focus goes towards bridging that gap. That is the big opportunity we see,” explained Flipkart’s Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy to Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

The focus is not to expand its 500 million users but to solve for customer velocity, he said.

“We are not focused on expanding that 500-600 million to 800 million And a lot of things which we do about travel and health and financial services, all of those are in that direction,” Krishnamurthy said adding that the firm will be a commerce player, even 10 years down the line, we will continue to be hopefully an influential and a scaled-up commerce player”.

Flipkart is set to launch its payment product within a month, as it looks to bring back users more frequently and drive velocity. This financial service foray will also help the firm in addressing the velocity problem.

Also Read: MC Interview: Flipkart to launch its payment product within a month, says CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy

“Eventually, the average customer's basket in India has a big part of categories like grocery and home. So, once you graduate to that, then you're buying 14 times a month. That's what the market needs to get to,” Krishnamurthy said.

Krishnamurthy’s words come at a time when the e-commerce industry in India is facing a slowdown. 2023 was tepid,
with analysts estimating that it grew at a decade’s low for the first time outside of the pandemic years.

“Getting e-commerce solved or digital commerce solved takes a lot of capability building. For example, launching an e-commerce business with books is easy. Then it goes to certain categories. Let's say it goes to branded electronics, it's a bit more sophisticated,” Krishnamurthy said.

Read the full interview here: MC Interview: No better job than Flipkart CEO in the world, says Kalyan Krishnamurthy 

Krishnamurthy said that Flipkart never had any estimation of the potential of the Indian market, but was rather focussed on proving the best value to the customer, which he said will naturally bring more frequent usage. He added that the frequency of Indian customer's usage of Indian customers is far less than that of the US or China.

"As a market leader, it's our job to evolve capabilities and constructs or products for the country. It's not that I'm waiting for some stroke of luck that it would have evolved. And by the way, I can play a role there. The way we look at everything is that we need to make it happen."