FlipkartPing : The overhyped launch event

Flipkart- the overhyped event ( will tell you how) which got us interested at the Oberoi during the Fitbit launch. This story kind of continues from the Oberoi itself. During the fitbit launch, we had managed to get invites for us late comers through Saurabh, for we didn’t have a clue in the world about the event. Exclusive invites were called, but as such is the case, people could bring any number of people along. The crowd would come that way na. So after departing from the Oberoi , we 3 ( Me, Dipali and Shilpi) left for CP. It was our 2nd event of the day after Fitbit.

What all happened at the Oberoi at fitbit can be read here:

http://www.shwetabhmathur.in/2015/08/indiblogger-fitbit-india-launch.html

With a sweet loaded horrendous menu at the oberoi, we were damn hungry. I mean like searching for real food. The location of this event was F bar at CP. God knew that F bar. We circled the various shop numbers at N block to finally locate that place. Well, we didn’t do it, it was Shilpi`s husband who was there already and waiting for us. We would have really missed that place had it been left to us. A very small lift (4 people and it feels cramped) took us to F bar. At the reception, we did our registrations and headed inside. The place was not that big. Chairs were put up in the main area and there were sofas lying all around at the usual sitting places. There was a live band preparing and rehearsing their music ( Astitva). Relaxing for some 5 minutes me and dipali headed out to find something to eat. Mindful of the time, we searched some 1.5 blocks and found nothing except for a bhelpuri wala and a golgappe wala. Rest of the places it was just bars and lounges. 

Old fashioned shops having closed down, CP is now all about various bars and lounges opening at every space available and imaginable. In a few years I think CP would be called as “ Central Pub” instead of “ Connaught Place”. With nothing else, dipali settled down to a plate of tasteless golgappas ( which gulped down just 3 after seeing that the water was tasteless), mission aborted midway and a plate of better spicy bhelpuri. Well my hunger just died after setting my foot in CP. A déjà vu situation at the Oberoi and my past memories meant that every moment I spent in the streets was suffocating. After I received a call from my childhood friend Anupriya, we headed back. It was nice to meet her. Was meeting her after some 2 years. Initially expected at the oberoi, she met me here and we got down to talks about various things while we waited for the event to start. The crowd had started trickling in and then in came the prankster whom I know – Priyanka Dey. 

She is dangerous as I have to be on the lookout for her pranks. For a change I found an ally in Shilpi`s husband for we talked about military and stuff like that. Before the start of the event, we had a stand up comedian Amit Tandon ( I think that was his name) trying to lighten the atmosphere.. Except a few genuine situational cracks, I did not find any other jokes too amusing or interesting. 

Then we had a sardar from Flipkart who welcomed us to the event ( name I don’t remember) and introduced to us the history and growth story of Flipkart. 

Man…these people do need counter offensive skills. How can a company claim an app base of 45 milion to be their so called growth and success? यार चूतिया किसी और को बनाना. You don’t have a mobile site and force everyone to install the app if they want to shop and then claim the same so called app base to be your success. C`mon guys, give me a deception better than that. I am damn 1000% sure that the tech team sitting there must have been shocked for my tweet about the same never showed up on the screen. Guess they were censoring tweets. Net connectivity was another issue at F bar as despite some 10 wifi signals, nobody knew the password to any of them, 3g was giving connectivity issues and only 2g was working. Okay so back to the event. After a few more mins. another person from flipkart joined the man on the stage and he told the technical development of how the flipkart app was made from the start keeping in mind the various technical challenges of the country. Now the thing was launched- Flipkartping. 

It is just another feature in the flipkart app which helps you connect with your social network, take their advice in your shopping decisions, search a product by a pic. That’s all there it is to it. Keeping in mind the intrusion in the lives of your friends, its an invite only initially. It lets you create groups of friends from your phonebook which have this app. If they don’t have it, send them an invite. Create a group and then you can share various pics of the products you like, discuss and then purchase the product after you get the advice. All this within one app. In reality who does this As regards to the photo search feature, you can click a pic of anything you like, upload it and search and the app would show you all products available in flipkart matching the one in the picture. 

The 2 guys then fielded some questions about flipkart in genereal from the various tech bloggers out there and evaded the now famous “ will flipkart go app only ?” question. They did demonstrate the photo search feature.

They called up a guy from the audience. He was wearing a green colour shirt. Clicked the pic of his shirt and searched and vola… the app did show the various shirts available in flipkart in the same green colour. After this the place became comparatively empty in max 25 seconds. All tech bloggers just exited and now only few people remained there for the music performance of Astitva. Food here was not a problem in comparison to the morning event but the variety sure was. Except for soft drinks, juices and beer, everything in snacks was non veg. No veg to be seen anywhere (Tuesday mind you). Shilpi had a tough time finding something to eat while I was ok with a softdrink. When Astitva started their music, it was melodious as they started with a few songs of their own as well as request numbers both in Hindi and English ( Astitva, Hotel California, Maaeri etc.). 

Astitva

Dipali and Priyanka shaking a leg

Music in any event is a mood changer. Had some important work the next day so couldn’t stay till the end of the music and left with Dipali.

Overall it was nothing to write home about. The mail dispatched to our mailboxes later or a 2 page press release handed over at the end would have saved the company lakhs of rupees had they not held that event and instead sent flyers to the people. Only god knows what objective did the marketing guys at flipkart achieved by wasting money at such a trivial thing. It was an overhyped event with no substantial content.