After eBay India and Flipkart cut ties, Flipkart is now shutting down eBay. And to sell refurbished goods, which was one of eBay’s specialties, Flipkart will soon be launching a new platform.
According to a report in Economic Times, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy sent an email to employees on Monday informing them that Flipkart has built a ‘brand new value platform’ based on its learnings from eBay and will launch it selling refurbished goods.
The market of refurbished goods in India is largely unorganized and exists mainly in local brick-and-mortar markets. With the large customer base that Flipkart has garnered and its acquisition of mobile repair company F1 Info Solutions & Services, the ecommerce major is looking to tap into this market. It is looking to solve the trust and convenience factor that the unorganized market lacks.
Kalyan says that Flipkart is committed to investing in this brand, which will have a value proposition different from Flipkart’s and target a different audience as well.
Flipkart bought eBay’s India operations in 2017 as part of a fund raising round where eBay invested roughly $500 million, apart from $220 million worth of shares it bought by selling the India business to Flipkart. The deal also included an agreement for cross-border trade opportunities, making eBay’s global inventory accessible to more India consumers, and give eBay’s millions of active buyers globally access to the Indian inventory provided by Flipkart.
However, After Walmart bought a 77% stake in Flipkart, eBay cut ties with Flipkart. This also included unwinding its commercial agreements with Flipkart and terminating Flipkart’s license to use the eBay.in brand. At the time, it had said that it will soon relaunch eBay India with a differentiated offer to focus initially on the cross-border trade opportunity.
Flipkart will thus stop all customer transactions on eBay.in as on August 14 and then transition to the new platform.
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