Goodbye eBay India and a warm welcome to 2Gud!!!

karan chawla
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read
Source: https://www.digit.in/startups/flipkart-buys-ebay-india-raises-record-14-billion-in-funds-34539.html

Flipkart has shut down eBay India, one of the oldest e-commerce website and has replaced it with 2GUD. eBay entered the Indian market with much enthusiasm and high expectations in 2004. Those were days when online shopping was still an alien concept for Indians. Since then, we have a plethora of options, each trying to outdo the other in offering deals, choices, conveniences and customer service. The customer has indeed become “king,” demanding free shipping, faster deliveries and ability to return products with which they’re even slightly dissatisfied.

eBay was a seller marketplace, and the customer should take some risk in purchases. The only advantage is it had a different catalog and competitive prices. Catalog used to be wider before Flipkart acquisition. After eBay was taken over by Flipkart, more concentration was in place for Refurbished and pre-owned mobiles and laptops.

2Gud is a new brand in Flipkart. We have a lot of pre-owned and refurbished items online but unorganized. Monetizing this opportunity is right for Flipkart. Flipkart got user base and sellers from eBay. They have a high tech team and building new experience from scratch is comfortable to them than upgrading existing application which might be obsolete. They themselves sell a lot of electronics and get returns at the same pace. This platform will help them to reduce losses and provide value to customers. As per information available on 2Gud, I feel their strategy is rightly placed. Still, this is new and need to wait for reviews and changes.

eBay’s hesitation to adapt itself also led to its demise in China in 2005. However, the company didn’t learn much from that experience. While Alibaba purchased eBay China, similarly Flipkart acquired eBay India. And later on, it lost out in the race in India too because of not being as per the latest trends. In my opinion, Flipkart should have opened 2Gud and kept eBay running similar to the one they did with Myntra / Jabong. The problem is, eBay and Flipkart parted their ways.

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
― George Bernard Shaw

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