The myth is not without it's merit, Flipkart is perhaps the first one which did it at massive scale and showed how it can reduce the friction when converting a website visitor to a paying customer.
Further read on COD http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/cover-story/cash-on-del...
Also, seems like mail order for most part still had to depend upon credit cards. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction
The point that I was highlighting is Flipkart showed the way as to how this forgotten system (COD) can be leveraged in the days of internet to acquire new customers.
The relevant question here is - If Amazon India came before Flipkart, would they have thought of putting this system in place? Maybe, Maybe not.
But one can hazard at least this much guess that looking at the kind of customer traction Flipkart was getting due to COD system, Amazon India's product managers perhaps had to write far lesser emails to Seattle for incorporating that in Amazon.in.
The idea is not novel, it's been conceived off several times in human history as suggested in this thread alone. So flipkart has no claim to special talent, or high barriers in conceiving of the idea.
Since Amazon also wants to be a market place enabler, and builder of market places themselves, it's quite likely they would see this model being played out in other parts of the world and try it out.
Yes, the number of emails required to sell the idea would be lower with an Indian paragon to point to.
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-difference-betwee...
India Post offered Reverse Money Order as a service aka VPP(http://chennaipost.gov.in/vpp.aspx)
I've narrowed down to Paytm as the first source and Amazon.in as the second source to look for products at good prices. Snapdeal comes a distant third.
We had 90 minutes for developing an application, language was of our choice, college had not bothered to set up the lab, then somehow we started, and they told we'd have 90minutes and then suddenly in 60minutes they came up and said okay we are done, now time to evaluate.
They rejected me because my code didn't compile, so nobody cares about your approach, it is like being in college where your architecture is shit, approach is shit, design is shit, we'll consider only when your code runs :D
I am happy I didn't get through. Also, for a company which looses crores of Rupees per year, it is a bad sign if they start using Mac books for development! Bootstrapping!
Amazon has been making in-roads, capturing a size-able market share, but dare I say they're imitating Flipkart to an extent, and that's a testament to innovativeness with which Flipkart has worked all along.
Despite the picture the article is trying to portray, Flipkart is well and truly an established business at this point. Sure they're making losses, but retailing is a tough-nut. In order to capture a rapidly growing internet-base, Flipkart and others need to take those hits-- they need to trade growth with profit, unless their end-game is to get acquired.
It is pretty natural trajectory an e-commerce company to take, IMO. These firms doing a re-valuation of their investments does look scary, and probably they did so having looked at the financials and the potential-- but the correction in the valuation is just a blip. Retailing is hard-- customers want discounts, VCs want growth, Markets want profit... you have to choose two and ignore the rest, I guess.