Kolkata, Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace has introduced a “Back to College” program to facilitate the educational needs of millions of students as they begin their classes virtually this year.

Under the program construct, Flipkart is making available a wide selection of computing devices and bundled education content through tie-ups with leading edtech players including Edukemy and Simplilearn. As part of the initiative, over 400 courses across coding, AI and competitive entrance examinations will be available to students among a plethora of learning choices. This initiative aims at enhancing the learning potential of students as digital learning takes precedence.

As students prepare to move into a new academic year, the “online learning” scenario, triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to lead them to upgrade their education essentials with the best computing devices to make their learning process more intuitive and impactful. As part of the nearly 3-month initiative which started in June, Flipkart has curated a special page on the platform to help students select the right computing and electronic items such as laptops, tablets, printers, audio devices and IT peripherals along with online learning materials depending on one’s primary use case.

As part of the campaign, students looking for laptops and tablets will receive options post purchase to pick relevant courses from the edtech partners in an affordable manner.

Rakesh Krishnan, Senior Director, Electronics at Flipkart, said, “As students get ready for the new academic year and are now better acquainted with virtual learning, we are closely working with our brand partners to bring the best-in-class computing products, combined with courses and content to enhance their learning experience. With nearly 40-45% of the demand for electronics coming from the student community and the significant rise in the adoption of online learning since last year, the industry is now shaping its offerings to cater to this fast-growing customer segment and bring various interventions. Through our “Back to College” program, students will benefit from the wide variety of courses offered by partners along with a large selection of computing devices available on Flipkart that will cater to their diverse needs and support them in choosing the best learning materials available.”

In the past year, the demand for computing devices including laptops and tablets has grown multifold, as students switched to learning from home on the back of the pandemic. Interestingly, while school students prefer to purchase budget laptops, college students are looking for premium options to undertake complex tasks which require high processing power.

At the same time, online education offerings for classes 1 to 12 are projected to increase 6.3X by 2022 from the base of 2019," according to an industry report*. It added that the post K-12 market is expected to grow 3.7X to touch $1.8 billion.

Flipkart’s customer insights also corroborated a growing demand for online learning materials among the customers of computing devices. Earlier in April, Flipkart partnered with Codingal, Avishkaar, Prograd and Vendantu to offer online courses for school students and witnessed good traction among customers.

To better cater to the students’ needs, Flipkart also introduced its Student Loyalty Program with wide-ranging benefits. Students will have to sign up on the electronics page on the Flipkart app using their student identification card and after verification, they will be eligible for 3 months of Flipkart Plus membership along with a host of other benefits on the purchase of electronics, gadgets and backpacks.

(Agencies)