Flipkart Takes On Amazon For E-Shopping Supremacy

India's online retailers are busy with acquisitions and funding as they take on the world's biggest Internet shopping giant, Amazon, for dominance in the domestic market.

Flipkart, India's largest e-shopping portal, announced in April the takeover of rival Myntra in a deal estimated at $330 million.

As Amazon enters the fray, it is forcing domestic players to get critical mass to compete, said Ashish Jhalani, founder of Indian consultancy eTailing. It's still a fragmented sector and there will be more consolidation in the future, he added.

"Our role model is Alibaba," Flipkart's co-founder Sachin Bansal said. He added, “there's a lot of similarity between the Chinese and Indian online retail markets."

"What's happening in China is inspiring -- it's bigger than anything in the US," said Bansal.

Flipkart's merger with Myntra created an entity with annual sales of $1.5 billion, which is more than half of India’s online shopping market, estimated at $2.3 billion by Indian consultancy Technopak.

Venture capitalists have been pumping money into the sector. Till now, deals worth $497 million have been struck this year as compared to $592 in the last year.

"This sector used to be for the brave-pocketed but it's becoming viable and the profit light can be seen at the end of the tunnel," said Bansal.