From 2BHK to 8.3 lakh sq feet: The Flipkart story so far







Autoplay Autoplay 1 of 7 A look back Flipkart sealed a deal with US retail giant Walmart which bought 77 per cent stake in the Bengaluru-based e-commerce company.



The journey of Flipkart started when two IIT-Delhi graduates left their jobs at Amazon to pursue entrepreneurial dreams.



Here is a look back at the company's journey from a two-bedroom office to where it is now: Started as an online bookstore Flipkart was founded 11 years ago in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (right). Although they share the same last name and come from Chandigarh, the two Bansals are not related. A batch apart in IIT-Delhi, they became friends while working together at Amazon.



Flipkart was started from a two-bedroom apartment in Bengaluru's Koramangala area as an online bookstore. From those humble beginnings it would go on to become the country's largest e-commerce player. Strategic expansion It opened its first office in Bengaluru in 2008 followed by offices in Delhi and Mumbai in 2009. Last month, Flipkart consolidated all its Bengaluru offices into one large campus sprawled across 8.3 lakh square feet. In 2011, Flipkart domiciled to Singapore, as it looked to woo foreign investors to fund rapid growth. Change in leadership Sachin was Flipkart CEO for nine years. In 2016, Binny Bansal took over as CEO as Sachin became executive chairman. Last year, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, (in pic) previously an executive in Flipkart investor Tiger Global, took over as Flipkart CEO.



Binny Bansal became CEO of the whole group, which includes fashion portals Myntra-Jabong, payments unit PhonePe and logistics firm Ekart. Flipkart's acquisitions Flipkart bought online apparel retailer Myntra in a deal pegged by sources at about $300 million in 2014, and another fashion retailer Jabong for $70 million in 2016.



It bought payment startup PhonePe in 2016. In exchange for an equity stake in Flipkart, eBay agreed to make a $500 million cash investment in and sell its eBay.in business to Flipkart in 2017.

Walmart's purchase of 77% stake in Flipkart has put Amazon against its biggest rival in India too. Amazon closely trailed Flipkart in GMV market share for 2017. Flipkart was seen to be no match for the American behemoth in the long term.But with Walmart 's entry, Amazon finds itself face to face with its rival in India where Flipkart's strong online presence will give it a strong footing against Amazon.Nearly a decade ago, when two Indians worked as interns at Amazon, no one could have ever imagined that the duo would build a big rival to Amazon in a promising and vast market. IITians Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal chose to come back to India and build Flipkart instead of keeping on working with Amazon.At that time, building a threat to Amazon was nowhere on their minds though they had picked up the idea from Amazon and adapted it to Indian conditions.In 2007, in an apartment in Koramangala in Bengaluru where Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal stayed with two other IIT Delhi batchmates, there was palpable excitement. They were completely over the moon, and perplexed about their first order. Till then, the only books they had sold were to family and friends.The first order was from VVK Chandra, a freelance web consultant in Mahbubnagar, was also a tech blogger and voracious reader. Books were difficult to get in Mahbubnagar, so he would make frequent trips to Hyderabad, 90 km away, to buy the books he was keen on. In October 2007, below a blog he had just written, the 25-year-old found that someone by the name Sachin had left a comment, and a website link: flipkart.com .Intrigued by the link, Chandra clicked on it, and it took him to an online book store that promised to ship books anywhere in India.In its first three months of business, Flipkart received 8-10 orders a week. From the fourth month, that changed to 8-10 orders a day. The numbers started doubling every third month. By the end of 2008, Flipkart was at 100 orders a day. Once they hit those numbers, the Bansals knew Flipkart would scale.In 2008, Flipkart opened its first office in Bengaluru. The next year, it hired its first full-time employee Ambur Iyyappa, who went on to become a dollar millionaire. The same year, Flipkart got its first funding when Accel Partners invested $1 million. The Bansals had realised that a major challenge online retail faced in India was far less prevalence of credit cards than in the US. Their 'cash on delivery' model proved to be a hit.Despite Flipkart's pole position in Indian online retail, Amazon was fast closing the gap.Amazon is also emerging as a clear leader among metro consumers, as per a Forrester survey done among 2,000 respondents in 9 cities in 2017, wherein 80% shopped on Amazon, while 65% shopped on Flipkart. “After surpassing Flipkart in 2016 for the first time (in metropolitan user preference), Amazon strengthened its position as metropolitan Indian consumers’ preferred online retail destination and is aggressively closing the gap with Flipkart to become the single-largest online retailer in India in terms of sales,” Forrester in a report, titled 'Online Retail Forecast (2017-2022) Asia Pacific', said.The Flipkart stake lets Walmart tap into India's retail market without building stores. The retail giant had once envisioned operating hundreds of locations across India but it has been unable to do so because of long-standing governmental concerns over so-called multibrand international retailers. Walmart landed in India in 2009 via a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, and took full control of that enterprise in 2013.India is an important component for Amazon's global empire because it offers a vast potential for online retail as reach of smartphones deepens and the economy grows. India’s online retailing business is estimated to grow by more than 1,200% to $200 billion (Rs 13,30,550 crore) by 2026, up from $15 billion in 2016, according to a Morgan Stanley report last year. It estimates online retail to account for 12% of the country’s retail market by then, up from just 2%.But now with Walmart pitched against it, Amazon will no longer find India a smooth play. If it had been able to retain its two Indian interns nearly a decade ago, Jeff Bezos's retail monster may have found it easier to conquer India.