Ex-Flipkart exec’s Flash app desires to be an inbox to your e-commerce wants

Electronic mail inboxes are difficult instruments as a result of over time they grow to be onerous to handle and customers have to spend so much of time looking for what they’re looking for. And if in case you have been utilizing one e-mail tackle in all places, it’s additionally painful to alter that at a later stage. Electronic mail instruments usually fail to determine completely different sorts of emails and group them correctly. India-based startup Flash is trying to unravel it by creating an answer (learn e-mail ID) that you should utilize for all e-commerce wants — and it’ll even reward you to make use of the service.

Flash — which is offered on each iOS and Android — enables you to create an e-mail ID (with @flash.co area) that you should utilize on all purchasing platforms, and in return, earn rewards similar to coupons and cashback. When you obtain the app from the Play Retailer or the App Retailer, you may enroll with a brand new e-mail ID and use it throughout all platforms to buy issues. After putting an order, you can even monitor a number of shipments from inside the app.

The inbox is split into two elements: Handpicked and Others. The Handpicked inbox has necessary emails similar to order supply updates and sign-up verifications whereas the Different part carries promotional emails. In my utilization in the previous few weeks, I observed that some sign-up/verification emails ended up within the Different inbox. The startup mentioned it’s nonetheless ironing out its filtering algorithm to keep away from that.

Flash’s e-mail inbox is rudimentary at this second. You may solely ahead or reply to emails. Flash mentioned that subsequent month, customers may have options like archive, auto-forward, and flags.

Other than creating a brand new inbox for e-commerce, the app additionally enables you to join along with your Gmail inbox. This permits the app to construct a abstract of your orders within the final 12 months and present a report of your e-commerce bills. Plus, the app additionally fetches orders for cargo monitoring out of your Gmail account.

Rewards

Virtually all e-commerce and cost companies in India have supplied some form of reward to customers to spice up engagement and retention. Flash has a few forms of rewards up its sleeve, too. First, it offers cashback by itself for finishing sure orders or signing up for some companies with a @flash.co e-mail tackle.

It additionally has particular coupons by means of model collaborations with Walmart-owned Myntra, Puma, pharmacy platform Pharmeasy, and Warburg Pincus-backed electronics brand Boat. Low cost coupons are commonplace apply within the Indian e-commerce market. Google Pay, Paytm, and Tiger Global-backed Cred provide a ton of those coupons in numerous shapes and kinds. However usually they’ve a variety of caveats connected to them.

Flash can be offering rewards for sure “streaks” — purchasing a number of occasions by means of a sure model or putting orders throughout a specific class in an outlined time interval. This can let customers earn a mixture of rewards from Flash and types each. The startup offers 1 Flash coin to 1 rupee conversion for rewards. Customers can deposit cash straight into their financial institution accounts by linking their UPI (Unified Cost Infercae) IDs — which is India’s indigenous cost community.

The corporate

Flash was based by Ranjith Boyanapalli, a former Flipkart government, in April final 12 months. The corporate raised $5.8 million in seed funding in November from a bunch of buyers together with World Founders Capital (GFC), White Enterprise Capital, and Zinal Progress with participation from the likes of Flipkart founder Binny Bansal, Cred’s Kunal Shah, Udaan’s Sujeet Kumar and Groww’s Lalit Keshre.

Earlier than beginning Flash Boyanapalli was a senior VP at Walmart-owned Flipkart and managed the corporate’s fintech and cost verticals there. In a name with TechCrunch, he mentioned there’s an enormous worth in leveraging the info of web shoppers by making use of it to supply worth to customers. Flash’s thought is rooted in benefiting from cross-merchant information intelligence by means of a single e-mail ID, he mentioned.

“We’re focusing on round 25 million energy consumers in India who store from a number of retailers yearly and have a serious contribution by way of market spend within the nation’s e-commerce market,” Boyanapalli mentioned.

One of many challenges these consumers face is extreme spamming of inboxes by completely different retailers, he mentioned. Plus, it’s onerous to trace orders by means of emails. Notably, Gmail has rolled out order tracking capabilities, however it’s restricted to sure geographies for now. For manufacturers, it’s more durable to have interaction clients as they’re bombarded with coupons, which ends up in decrease conversion charges. Boyanapalli mentioned Flash is attempting to unravel all these issues by means of one app.

There are many e-commerce apps in each India and the US that supply both order monitoring or rewards together with Shopify’s Shop app, Groupon, and Cashkaro. However Flash believes that it has a bonus as a result of it brings all of those features collectively in a single app.

India’s e-commerce market is about to double in measurement to over $130 billion by 2025, in line with Bernstein, and the startup is attempting to focus on individuals who will contribute most to these figures. However the overwhelming majority of these folks make purchases by means of Amazon India and Flipkart, companies that presently usually are not taking part in ball with Flash for any rewards program.

What’s forward?

After this launch, Flash is concentrated on rolling out options similar to month-to-month experiences, inbox search, e-mail labeling, archiving, and auto-forwarding within the subsequent few months. The corporate can be constructing its personal “Login with Flash” authentication mechanism that e-commerce companions can combine into their service.

Other than function rollouts, the startup can be enthusiastic about class growth by tuning its product for journey and OTT (Over the air) companies purchases. So sooner or later, the app might allow you to handle all of your tickets and subscriptions. Flash can be gearing as much as launch its choices within the US this 12 months, the place the e-commerce market is much bigger than that of India — each by way of high-value consumers and gross income.