How Flipkart revived a dead television brand

Flipkart and BPL’s Tango is showing results. Photo credit: Prayinto.

Two years ago, Flipkart, India’s biggest ecommerce company, approached former home appliances giant BPL with an idea – why not bring back its defunct TVs, and sell them online?

Things worked out, and BPL started selling again in January this year, after a hiatus of about a decade.

Now the company is aiming to clock around US$15 million in total annual revenues in fiscal 2016, chairman and managing director Ajit Nambiar told Tech in Asia during an interview. Last year, when the consumer electronics business wasn’t around, the company’s total revenues were roughly US$4.5 million.

BPL stopped making TVs around 2007. Photo credit: BPL.

As far as businesses go, family-run BPL (short for British Physical Laboratories) used to be a giant in the India of the 1990s. With its tagline of Believe in the Best, and its high profile endorsements, the Bangalore-based company was a force that ruled the Indian home appliances market for years, with revenues reaching as high as US$ 630 million (today’s rates) during the late 90s.

BPL plans to clock US$15 million in revenues in fiscal 2016

Then, the century turned and BPL saw a slew of setbacks. Once the top TV brand in the country, it fought with names like Samsung and LG, and lost. Moreover, alleged family infighting and a lack of financial discipline made things harder, and the final nail came down when Sanyo, its technology partner, filed for bankruptcy and was bought by Panasonic.

Unable to cope, BPL got out of its consumer electronics business (it has a medical devices unit as well as a home automation business) and was lost to an entire generation of Indians.

“That’s exactly what we want to change. To get to the new generation, who has heard about the brand but has not used it,” Ajit said.

Advantage online

BPL’s Ajit Nambiar is pro-ecommerce. Photo credit: BPL.

One rule of success that all big ecommerce companies swear by is in knowledge and data sharing with its vendors. Everyone from Amazon to Alibaba does it – helping vendors get better, and in turn, helping their own sales.

Two to tango