eBay also wanted to go out after Walmart’s announcement of acquiring a 77% stake in Flipkart and its group com... Read More

NEW DELHI: In what seems to be the end of an era, Flipkart said it will shut down one of India’s oldest running e-commerce sites eBay .in. In its place, the Bengaluru-headquartered e-tailer will launch an online platform for refurbished or used products, which will be pitted against OLX and Quikr — current market leaders in the online secondhand goods space.

“Based on our learnings at eBay.in, we have built a brand new value platform with refurbished goods, a large market, which is predominantly unorganised. With Flipkart’s customer base, and F1 Info Solutions & Services in our group portfolio, I believe we can solve the key barriers to refurbished — trust and convenience — at scale,” said CEO of Flipkart Kalyan Krishnamurthy in a letter to employees. “As part of this launch, we will be stopping all customer transactions on eBay.in on August 14, 2018 and transitioning to the new platform.” F1 Info Solutions & Services is a company with a network of repaired centres, which Flipkart bought last year.

The new platform has a different value proposition compared to Flipkart, and will cater to a separate target audience, Krishnamurthy added.

The California-headquartered eBay sold its India business to Flipkart in 2017 and paid $500 million for a stake of around 5% in the company. While taking over eBay.in, Flipkart said it wished to leverage cross-border trade through the platform, which would help its vendors sell to eBay’s global customers and its Indian customers buy from eBay’s international sellers. Subsequently, eBay India was named Mint-Kart. However, things did not go as planned and the partnership failed to make headway, sources said.

eBay also wanted to go out after Walmart ’s announcement of acquiring a 77% stake in Flipkart and its group companies for $16 billion. In a statement, eBay had said earlier that it intends to sell its holdings in Flipkart, “which will represent gross proceeds of approximately $1.1 billion”. eBay will end its strategic relationship with Flipkart, which includes ending of its commercial agreements with the e-tailer and terminating Flipkart’s licence to use the eBay.in brand, the company added.

The new platform for used goods by Flipkart is expected to be rolled out next month but customers may be able to shop on it only after six months. In the meanwhile, only Flipkart vendors will be able to access it, sources said.

After it made its intention clear to distance itself from Flipkart, eBay had said it will relaunch eBay India with a focus initially on cross-border trade. However, eBay.com is currently active in India and several small and medium businesses that TOI spoke to said they use the platform for exports. A emailed questionnaire to eBay did not elicit any response.

