Insights from Discussions with Flipkart

 Logistic feasibility: When flipkart want to expand its service to a new location they mostly
consider is the logistics factors like availability local delivery partners. They tigh up with local
delivery partners
 Pincode search: The decision to expand into a new market or location is based on the number of
purchase requests that comes up from particular area characterised by pincodes. So customers
enter pincode on flipkart page to check whether an item will be delivered to a location or not.
Different pincodes will be clustered and check if the number of requests are good enough they
will check for local delivery partners or set up hub at an optimal location which can cater to
different pincodes in the cluster.
 Marketing and further expansion: Another approach of flipkart is when it plans to expand to a
new location which doesn’t have much requests on the website. They do some initial marketing
in the local region, then keep delivery partners, and check how the demand grows.
 Low investment in expansion: Usually the location expansion is mostly logistic expansion in
nature and involves not much investment as they tie up with local logistics providers or rent a
small room as servicing hubs
 High investment in warehousing decision: Warehousing requires larger real estate, workers and
other expenses. So the location decision of warehouses is mostly to optimise the supply chain
and also consider the factors like cheap labour, infrastructure, labour union involvement,
proximity to airport, railway station etc.
 Competition: Doesn’t consider much about local brick & mortar competition when doing
location expansion. Considers whether other retail companies are serving there. It is considered
in sales strategy , but in location decision as such the competition factor is not considered much.

Insights from discussion with Cloudtail

 Amazon decides on new warehouses and service location

 Cloudtail also suggests to amazon regarding expanding to new city, setting up fulfilment
centres and hubs based on their market insights.
 Planning & Operations team: Takes care of warehousing, service expansion and the decision is
made considering logistics and operational parameters.
 From bottom up in management: The local operations and planning team sees potential in a
trade area, and presents to top management and proceeds further
 Top down in management: When the business decides to say increase on the sales revenue,
company decides on expanding to new trade areas and locations

We would be also looking into other e-retail companies in detail on whether they consider location
analysis on expanding their service to a new city/region or trade area. We would also be discussing
with Prof Atanu Ghosh about his e-retail start-up salt n soap based in Kolkata.