India’s leading online market place Flipkart will soon roll out services allied to the automobile category in a bid to make buying vehicles more convenient online.

Flipkart is already piloting the initiative in Bengaluru. The services will include processing of road tax, paper works for motor insurance and also after-sales services.

Adarsh Menon, Vice-President for electronics and automobiles at Flipkart, told BusinessLine that the company plans to roll out these services nationally by next month with an expectation that it would boost the sales of automobiles and accessories on Flipkart’s platform.

The company, founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, has lately been focusing on high value and margin products to improve its revenues as well as profitability, besides taking on the rising competition from players like Amazon and Snapdeal. The company will now compete with vertical players like CarDekho, CarTrade and Droom.

Flipkart has started working with car and bike manufacturers like Mahindra & Mahindra, Kawasaki and TVS Motors. It started with the sale of Mahindra KUV100 K8 and sold about 21,000 units, both online and offline, by March this year.

The e-tailer, which started with books online, has expanded into several categories from apparels to motorcycles, scooters and cars on its platform.

Flipkart had entered the automobile category by selling auto accessories and spare parts last year.

Talking about the auto segment’s growth, Menon said that, “We started selling auto parts and accessories under the electronics category but certain auto-specific products started exploding in growth which was when we decided to spin off as a separate category. The category has grown 600 per cent in the last one year. Few products like car mobile holder has grown 1,000 per cent and car refrigerators grew 300 per cent month-on-month.”

According to Menon, the growth of few product categories like car refrigerators was more lifestyle-related as people have started taking more road trips. Another category that is doing well on Flipkart is helmets.

Menon said that the opportunity in the auto spare parts is also increasing as it is largely unorganised and offline market worth ₹10,000 crore.

“We are targeting to achieve a substantial share of this market as consumers are looking for a full selection but these are not the kind of products that you will get in your neighbourhood, and hence, online plays a major role. We expect to grow 600 per cent in the next 12 months in this category.”

While metros continue to be the growth driver for auto category (spare parts, accessories and auto electronics), the company expects to be getting a positive traction from smaller towns in the next six months.

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