It seems that Ebay Inc has no plans to give up on India. The American e-commerce giant, which ended its strategic partnership with Flipkart following the Walmart deal, is all set to play its second inning in India.
According to reports, Ebay is planning to start an export business for Indian sellers. It may look to leverage its global brand name & international market presence to give a formidable platform to Indian sellers. Reports further claim that Ebay has also started discussion to take over eBay.in domain from Flipkart.
Ebay’s CEO Devin Wenig gave clear hint about soon-to-be launched export business during company’s earning call earlier this month. He said that the company had turned to Flipkart to give a push to its export business and will re-start again following the Walmart transaction.
“We will light up the Indian seller base to sell across all of our major markets,” he added.
Meanwhile, Flipkart has rebooted Ebay.in into a new platform that will be purely focused on selling refurbished goods. This platform will be called 2Gud and was officially launched on Tuesday.
Flipkart had announced earlier this month that it is closing down ebay.in platform and will start a new platform dedicated to second hand goods. Bengaluru based e-commerce giant had bought eBay’s India business last year for nearly $1.4 Bn.
Ebay’s chequered & struggling journey in India
Ebay entered the Indian market way back in 2004, almost three years before Flipkart was launched. Conventionally, Ebay should have taken the first mover advantage and become a force to reckon with in India’s e-commerce market.
However, American e commerce giant simply failed to capitalize on the first mover advantage. The company simply failed to gain strong footing despite its decade long presence in the Indian market.
Ebay’s failure to tap India’s e-commerce market can only be described as a miss opportunity. This has been clearly proven by Amazon, which entered the Indian market seven years later then eBay did. However, today Amazon has almost become the king of India’s e-commerce market, giving indigenous companies like Flipkart & Snapdeal real hard time.