Popular myth is COD (Cash on Delivery) model was pioneered by Flipkart which other e-tailers (Amazon including) adopted.

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...

Flipkart's COD model has many innovations. Ecom's main payment option in US is credit cards; India does not have many people having credit cards. Also people did not want to prepay because of their past experiences with other services. Flipkart was able to COD on a large scale, became reliable and trusted, and was able to overcome people's reluctance to purchase online. Flipkart's other innovations, easy returns, their own delivery network, not depending on 3rd parties.

I don't think this is a new concept by any means. It is primarily due to the fact that a large majority of consumers in India might not have the means or the comfort level to put in a credit card. The concept has been around for a long long time. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_order

As mentioned it is a myth. Even within India, the postal dept had this for ages - called 'Value Payable Post' (perhaps going back to colonial days). http://www.indiapost.gov.in/VPPost.aspx

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.

Yes?

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.

Myth buster: Innovation and invention.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-difference-betwee...

Was Cash on Delivery introduced by Flipkart before Amazon in India? If so, I think amazon is 'imitating' flipkart in this area. I see COD on UPS, Fedex in USA but not as popular as COD in India.

eBay.in offered cash on delivery waaay before flipkart (as a matter of fact, the original site Baazee.com which got merged into eBay did it very successfully too)

There were some catalogs, which offered in the earlier days, I remember in 80s and even earlier than that. Its been around long before Interwebs.

The form of COD in India has been around for over a century across nearly the entire industrialized world. There's nothing innovative about it, the debate (Flipkart vs Amazon) is pretty moot given the history of COD stretches so far back.

I used Cash on delivery using much smaller website 12-14 years ago in India. IIRC it was just a local company that delivered within the city.

Yes, long before Amazon started operating in India.

Absolutely, I was offering Cash on Delivery using VPP back in 2004 for my baazee.com store(eBay acquired baazee to enter Indian market as ebay.in)

India Post offered Reverse Money Order as a service aka VPP(http://chennaipost.gov.in/vpp.aspx)