that the move had been a failure in june this year flipkart finally restored myntras desktop website by then amazon was ramping up and flipkart and such local rivals as snapdeal began to feel the heat a price war ensued that moved lots of product but failed to buy customer loyalty flipkarts losses mounted amid the heavy discounting in fiscal 2015 according to kotak institutional equities research 22 ecommerce businesses ran up over 12 billion in red inkwith flipkart leading the way in recent months it has become harder for indian startups to raise money in february chinese ecommerce giant alibaba group holding ltd was reportedly mulling an investment in flipkart that foundered because the indian company refused to accept a lower valuation ceo bansal is looking to raise fresh capital but declined to discuss the alibaba situation we are fortunate to be in that position where we can raise money when it is available on our terms he said a weakened flipkart is less than ideally positioned to mount a counterattack against amazon in a sign of the battle to come the seattle giant cut the commissions it charges thirdparty merchants in india by as much as 7 in some categories only days earlier flipkart keen to stanch losses had done the opposite boosting its own commissions by 5 to 6 percent meanwhile amazon has just added five fulfillment centers in india including its largest one outside delhi has added 100000 sellers on its platform to flipkarts 90000 and built a lead over its rival in website traffic amazons consistent performance over the last year and our stellar first quarter indicates that the tide is turning amazons india chief amit agarwal said in an email the next conquest is the hinterland where cracking the challenging last mile gets exponentially harder flipkart and its rivals will need to penetrate deeper into hundreds of smaller cities and over 650000 villages where running water is unavailable let alone a web connection to make products desirable to all indians flipkart is pushing brands like samsung and motorola to offer lowerpriced onlineonly models of televisions and smartphones the ekart logistics arm is trying to predict what people want to buy and get the goods to warehouses closest to the demand local knowledge could give flipkart an advantage but bezos has demonstrated a willingness over the years to keep pouring in money and accepting losses until the battle is won no one is counting out flipkart least of all binny bansal who employed a cricket metaphor to describe the state of play in his chosen industry it is still the first day of the first test match in a fivetest series bloomberg published on jul 19 2016 at 1225 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions