e-commerce
When love sat down Instamart’s Phools bloom into a viral Valentine
A Bandra bench, two flowers and four million views spark quiet romance.
MUMBAI: Sometimes, romance doesn’t need a script, just a place to sit. This Valentine’s Day, Instamart discovered exactly that with Phools in Love, a public installation in Bandra, Mumbai, where two oversized sunflowers and an ordinary bench quietly stole the spotlight.
The idea was disarmingly simple. Instamart placed the installation in a public space and let people react without prompts or instructions. Couples, families, morning walkers and curious passersby were invited to sit, pause and interpret the moment for themselves. What followed was a stream of unfiltered responses, shy smiles, awkward laughter, tender glances and playful giggles, each moment shaped entirely by those who stumbled into it.
Captured as a digital-first film, Phools in Love struck an immediate chord online. Within 12 hours of release, the video clocked close to 4 million views, fuelled largely by organic sharing across social platforms. Viewers were drawn not by spectacle, but by recognition, the familiarity of understated, almost cinematic intimacy.
The installation leaned into a truth deeply rooted in Indian culture. Romance here has rarely relied on loud declarations. Instead, it thrives in suggestion, a look held a second longer, a shared laugh, a 90s hindi movie frame where two flowers say more than words ever could. In Bandra, those cues played out in real time. A couple in their 60s exchanged surprised smiles. A young pair broke into laughter. Children squealed as parents instinctively reached for their phones. A same-sex couple quietly held hands and leaned into the moment. To an onlooker, it was just two flowers. Everything else was imagined.
Instamart stayed deliberately in the background, acting as the quiet enabler rather than the hero of the scene. Participants were surprised with Valentine’s Day gifts, flowers, chocolates, teddies and small, thoughtful tokens delivered almost as instantly as the emotion itself. The gesture reinforced Instamart’s positioning as the brand that shows up in fleeting moments, especially when love arrives last minute.
“Romance in India has never been about spelling everything out,” said Swiggy head of brand Mayur Hola. “It’s always lived in suggestion, in old Bollywood frames where two flowers could say more than words ever could. With Phools in Love, we wanted to recreate that feeling in the real world and see how people interpret love in their own way.”
The campaign also tapped into a wider Valentine’s buzz around the platform. Instamart recently went viral for its limited-edition bouquets made of chocolates, condoms, protein bars, snacks and flower-shaped hair clutches, a playful nod to the growing appetite for personalised, unconventional gifting.
In a season crowded with grand gestures and loud declarations, Phools in Love stood out by doing the opposite. By letting people project their own stories onto a simple setup, Instamart turned an ordinary bench into a mirror and reminded the internet that sometimes, love only needs a moment to sit down and bloom.
e-commerce
Flipkart cuts around 300 jobs in annual performance review
E-commerce giant trims ~1.5 per cent of workforce as IPO preparations continue.
MUMBAI: Flipkart just gave performance the pink slip because when the annual review bell rings, even the biggest cart sometimes needs to lighten its load. Flipkart has let go of approximately 300 employees as part of its annual performance management cycle, Moneycontrol reported on 7 March 2026, citing people familiar with the matter. The exits represent roughly 1.5 per cent of the company’s total workforce of around 20,000 people across its businesses.
The move follows Flipkart’s standard practice of asking employees placed in lower performance bands to leave during yearly reviews, a process the company has carried out periodically in recent years. A similar exercise in early 2024 saw around 1,000 employees (nearly 5 per cent of the workforce) exit.
The latest round comes amid Flipkart’s continued push for operational efficiency and cost discipline, mirroring broader trends across the Indian startup ecosystem where funding slowdowns have shifted focus toward profitability.
The development also arrives as Flipkart advances preparations for a potential domestic IPO. The company has held early discussions with investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Kotak Mahindra Capital to explore feasibility. Industry sources indicate a possible listing timeline of late 2026 or early 2027, though the final size and schedule remain undecided.
In December 2025, Flipkart received National Company Law Tribunal approval to shift its holding company domicile from Singapore back to India. a key regulatory step that simplifies the group structure ahead of a public market debut.
Controlled by Walmart, Flipkart remains one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms, locked in fierce competition with Amazon. In a market where every rupee counts and every headcount is scrutinised, the latest cuts aren’t just housekeeping, they’re part of a bigger balancing act between growth ambitions and the road to listing.
