Flipkart Rejigs Top Management; Binny Bansal New CEO

In a bid to improve its seller ecosystem, the country’s largest online retailer Flipkart has rejigged top-level roles in its core marketplace business. Samardeep Subandh, who joined the Bengaluru-based e-tailer as its marketing head in December last year, has taken over as head of categories.

Subandh, who boasts of over a decade of experience in marketing and sales with FMCG giants such as HUL and Marico, will be reporting to Flipkart’s CEO Binny Bansal . He is expected to help drive up sales for multiple categories, especially mobiles and appliances – a major growth area for the e-tailer which is now being challenged by rival Amazon. Amit Bansal, head of large appliances; Rishi Vasudev, head of fashion retail; and Adarsh Menon, who leads electronics and automobiles, will now report to Subandh as part of the latest internal restructuring.

Besides, former MobileStore COO Ajay Veer Yadav has joined Flipkart as VP of mobiles category in order to counter aggressive moves from Amazon India. Recently, Motorola’s Moto G series, which is one of the most popular handsets in the country, joined hands with Amazon for an exclusive sales deal, after having been on the Flipkart platform till recently.

A Flipkart spokesperson confirmed the senior-level reshuffle and appointment of Yadav.

Yadav’s mandate would be to boost mobile sales with the help of his multi-category and cross-functional knowledge in retail and marketing. Flipkart is believed to have closed December 2015 with an annualized GMV of $4.5-5 billion with sales slowing down in key categories, especially in mobiles which were the mainstay for the online retailer . GMV is the overall sales done on an e-commerce platform without factoring in discounts and returns via sellers. Flipkart doesn’t officially comment on its GMV.

Anil Goteti, a company veteran who was heading the mobiles category at the e-tailer, will now head the marketplace platform to focus on improving seller experience, enhancing sellers’ reach and strengthening the overall merchant ecosystem. Another area where Amazon has been making speedy progress with a 250% jump in sellers’ base in 2015 over the previous year. Flipkart has about 85,000 sellers on its platform now. Goteti is replacing Manish Maheshwari, who left the online commerce major to join Web 18 as CEO in April this year.