Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has launched its customer loyalty scheme Flipkart Plus. As the festival season approaches, India’s both leading e-tailers are gearing up to draw in more customers. Recently, Flipkart slashed its commission rates on low price categories, in order to attract more sellers.
Flipkart’s new membership programme is aimed at tackling the presence of Amazon’s Prime membership in the Indian market.
Talking at the launch, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart, said, “At Flipkart, we deeply understand the Indian customer and solve for them meaningfully. This means that everything we do is not just limited to a particular section of the society but appeals to a wider audience. With that in mind, we have crafted Flipkart Plus as India’s most inclusive customer benefits programme and we’re extremely thrilled to launch it this Independence Day.”
Flipkart Plus, the membership programme by Flipkart, can be availed by all its customers for zero fees. To avail the membership, its customers will need 50 coins in their account. The customers earn 1 coin for every purchase worth ₹250, also a customer can only earn a maximum of 10 coins per order.
So effectively, a customer will have to shell out ₹12,500 to earn those 50 coins, which can be further redeemed to join the Flipkart Plus membership.
Now the benefits offered in the Flipkart Plus membership include free delivery across more than 3 crore products, exclusive access to sales, priority customer support helpline, along with the option to redeem the earned coins at third-party platforms such as Hotstar, Zomato, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, among others.
While Amazon’s Prime members have the opportunity to access its digital media library content that includes videos, movies, along with music, as well as free delivery and early sale access for a price of ₹999 per year.
Prime membership has enabled Amazon to drive its sales and Flipkart is looking to boost its sales with its new Plus membership. Both the e-commerce giants are set to take on each other in the Indian market, as Amazon has recently infused ₹2,700 crores in its Indian business. While Flipkart is set to enter the online grocery with the launch of Flipkart Supermart.