If you are an Indian online shopper, most of your purchases might have been from two of the biggest online stores – Flipkart, and Amazon and probably you might have an idea about which online store is better than others. However, for newbie online shoppers, this article might help them. Let us start with some basic facts about both these stores.

Basic Facts on Flipkart

Started as a Bengaluru-based online book store in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, Flipkart expanded its wings to sell Cameras, Computers, Laptops, Large Appliances, Health, Personal Care, and Stationery. Its subsidiary online stores include Myntra, Jabong, and 2Gud. Most of the products are delivered through Ekart – a Flipkart subsidiary courier service. Jeeves, owned by Flipkart, delivers services for home appliances and mobiles across 300 cities in India. In 2015, Flipkart launched PhonePe – a digital wallet service. In 2018 Walmart acquired 77% of its stake in Flipkart. The Supermart service was recently launched Supermart for everyday essentials. It is available only in selected cities now.

Basic Facts on Amazon

Started as an online bookstore in 1994, Amazon reaches India after purchasing Junglee in 1998. Later in 2013, the online retail giant has launched its own Indian online store Amazon.in. Now it is a sole competitor for Flipkart in terms of service and product categories. Like Flipkart Amazon too has its own courier service for faster delivery. Amazon Pantry is like Flipkart Grocery but was launched much earlier. Amazon Pay is a digital wallet integrated into the Amazon website. Like PhonePe, it can also be used for UPI money transfers.

Flipkart offers Flipkart Plus that offers free shipping for selected products. The Plus membership is free once you collect 200 Supercoins through shopping on Flipkart. What’s more, the coins won’t be deducted for Plus membership and also the coins can be exchanged for shopping discounts, OTT membership and other rewards. While Amazon Prime subscription is available for INR 1499. Apart from free shipping, it comes with various other benefits like OTT and music playing services. And also free books are available in Kindle for Prime subscribers.

As I have been doing online shopping for more than 8 years, I preferred Amazon over Flipkart until recently. The main reason was I am a Prime subscriber. I can purchase “Fulfilled” products with free shipping even if the price is very low. Moreover, it seemed like Amazon offered products at a lower price than Flipkart. However, a few weeks back I happened to compare a few products on Amazon and Flipkart. To my surprise, Flipkart seems to provide better offers to Amazon. The change might have happened after Walmart’s investment.

As a Plus member, now I prefer Flipkart over Amazon. If a shopper has a Flipkart Plus membership it is possible he can find better offers on Flipkart. However, it is a better practice to compare the products on a few more websites before making a purchase.