I wrote about the obsession of Flipkart (and Myntra) with "mobile-only" without even having an iPad-optimized app! I also talked about the stunning advances being made in voice-search by using machine learning, cognitive learning, natural language processing, even as voice-based search capabilities of e-commerce companies - including Amazon - remain abysmal. Finally, I also included several use-cases that these companies need to work on incorporating into their capabilities.That piece, Flipkart, Focus and Free Advice, appeared in DNA on June 27th, 2015.
My earlier pieces on the same topic:
- Flipkart vs Amazon: Beware the Whispering Death - 20th April '15 (blog, dna)
- Mobile Apps: There’s Something (Profitable) About Your Privacy - 18th April '15 (blog, dna)
- Mobile advertising and how the numbers game can be misleading - 14th April '15 (blog, dna)
- Is Flipkart losing focus - 12th April '15 (blog, dna)
Flipkart, Focus, and Free Advice – Shipping Charges Also Waived!
What is one to make of a statement like this - “India is not mobile-first, but mobile-only country[1]”? Especially so if it is from the co-founder of the largest ecommerce company in India, and it turns out the company does not even have an app for the Apple iPad?I have written at length on the distractions that seem to have been plaguing Flipkart and why it cannot afford to drop its guard in this fiercely contested space[2] - especially in light of all the noise surrounding its mobile ambitions. Somewhat paradoxically, this post is about offering advice to Flipkart that calls for some diversification!
As a logical next step, I wanted to take a look at Flipkart’s mobile apps – both on the iOS and Android platforms – to see how well they were executing on their very bold ambitions. As an aside, I also wanted to see if these (and competitive) mobile apps were leveraging all the computing power now available on tap inside these tiny devices. After all, apart from the recent – and amazing – advances Google has made in its voice-based search capabilities[3], there was this stunning demo from Hound[4] that gave a glimpse into the huge advances that voice-recognition, search, and machine-learning technologies have made in the last decade.
#MustRead - what next, e-tailing ? @flipkart Flipkart, Focus and Free Advice http://t.co/zincR6LS9D via @dna @AbhinavAgarwal
— Harini Calamur (@calamur) June 28, 2015