Flipkart to use eBay India for selling used products

Flipkart aims to put eBay's global sales platform to sell used products, received from customers through its product exchange offers and buyback guarantee schemes, according to three people aware of the company’s plans.

Those who welcome this move see the refurbished products as a growing market untapped before but few industry experts and analysts speculate that Flipkart's plan of selling the refurbished items on eBay instead of selling them on its native website indicates that the company wants to keep eBay India running, reported ET.

In India, the sale of refurbished goods is currently dominated by OLX and Quikr and Amazon in a largely unorganized market.

Flipkart with this move not only aims to compete with these popular online retailers in India but also provide Flipkart’s vendors access to eBay’s global customers and Flipkart’s customers access to eBay’s global inventory of products.

According to Flipkart spokesperson, the company is looking out for possibilities to leverage the eBay India reach.

During its recently concluded Big Billion Days sale, one in four customers who bought premium smartphones on day one of the sales in the category did so with its buyback guarantee scheme. The firm claimed the sale of 1.3 million smartphones within the first 20 hours.

This leaves Flipkart with a large number of used phones in its inventory. As of now, Amazon is the most trusted retailer for buying refurbished items from abroad.

Flipkart before its acquisition of eBay India in April this year was only limited inside the country for the sale of refurbished goods.

The company might be planning to refurbish the smartphones and pitch them in the international market, with less offering price than Amazon. Driving its sales and give its other online retailers a stiff competition.

Flipkart took over eBay.in after the two companies concluded a merger announced in April as part of a deal that saw the Indian e-commerce company raising $1.4 billion in funding from eBay, Microsoft and Tencent. eBay made a $500 million cash investment in Flipkart for an equity stake and sold eBay.in to Flipkart

Renamed as MintKart in July last year, eBay India, clocked revenue of Rs 391 crore and a loss of Rs 171 crore according to regulatory filings shared by data tracking firm Tofler.

As of August 2017, eBay had about 171 million active customers globally in over 190 countries. Customers in these countries can buy Flipkart’s products through eBay. Flipkart will also use its ‘Global Powership’ initiative where it has partnered with global vendors and carrier service.