I was checking the jewellery category on Flipkart when I saw the Bluestone.com Ad on their website.
There are 2 things which are important in this Ad. First, bluestone.com website is mentioned instead of just Bluestone logo which may prompt customers to visit bluestone.com and purchase from there itself. One may argue that people would prefer to buy it from Flipkart instead of Bluestone as Flipkart is a much bigger brand, but there is a catch which is discussed below.
Now when I click on the Ad, it displays Bluestone products on Flipkart’s website as shown below.
Here comes the catch, second part of the Ad. In the Ad, it was mentioned that the discount is 15% but on Flipkart, Bluestone sells most of its product at 10% discount. So, basically a customer can save 5% if they buy from Bluestone.com. Since, jewellery are high ticket products, 5% is a big amount.
This led to me visiting Bluestone website to check the same. Mind you, I had never visited Bluestone.com before. I found that Bluestone has more than 0.4 million likes on their FB page, have experienced founders and investors in Accel Partners and Saama Capital. Clearly, Bluestone is not a small player and is trying to build its credibility in the minds of the buyers and with time, move the buyers from Flipkart website to Bluestone which would better their margin.
So, Is Flipkart indirectly helping Bluestone build its credibility by promoting them on their website?