Flipkart celebrates success of marketplace sellers/MSMEs

Recognises and rewards sellers including top woman seller, first TBBD seller, and top Samarth artisan post festive season

After sellers witnessed record sales during Flipkart’s The Big Billion Days (TBBD) this year, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace hosted a gala event to recognise sellers, MSMEs and artisans for their hard work and participation during the festive period. Held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi, the event, hosted by Sunil Grover, was attended by hundreds of sellers and featured performances from Jaqueline Fernandez and Badshah.

Over 1,500 sellers from across the country were in attendance at the event. A wide range of sellers were awarded for their accomplishments during TBBD in categories such as ‘Top Woman Flipstar’, ‘Most Trusted Seller’, ‘Most Reliable Flipstar’, ‘TBBD First Innings’ and ‘Going Beyond Limitations (Samarth)’.

Flipkart is focused on bridging the gap between Bharat and India, for its consumers and sellers, and has undertaken concerted efforts to reach every corner of the nation and onboard sellers from tier 2 and 3 cities. Consequently, there has been a 50% growth in the number of sellers participating in TBBD’19 as compared to TBBD’18.  

Flipkart has unveiled several initiatives to empower the seller ecosystem, with TBBD enabling Flipkart to impact the ecosystem on a tremendous scale. Some of the key growth trends that Flipkart’s seller base has witnessed during TBBD include:

Over 1,35,000 artisans and weavers participated in TBBD for the first time through Flipkart Samarth

Participants in Samarth saw over 100% growth in sales during TBBD’19

By the close of Day 2, ~25,000 sellers crossed their total sales of TBBD’18 (5-day sale)

50% of the top sellers on Flipkart witnessed 3X growth

Almost 50% growth in the number of new seller cities

Over 40% of transacting sellers during TTBBD were from Tier 2 and beyond towns

According to Shahnawaz, a differently-abled artisan with Jaipur-based ComfortZone, TBBD was a special time. He said, “This was my first TBBD and the first experience of something on this scale, and it was fantastic. I have never seen so many sales in my business. Thanks to the platform for helping me gain this visibility. I was able to scale up to an 1800 sq ft setup from a small room, in just a couple of months. I even ended up hiring more hands because of the increase in sales. It has been a good period, and I hope it continues like this.”

Flipkart is driving inclusive growth by empowering more sellers and MSMEs from smaller towns to participate in e-commerce and benefit from it. The success of The Big Billion Days 2019 helped many small sellers, budding, rural and women entrepreneurs and artisans contribute to India’s economy and generate many local jobs. 

Flipkart partners with FICCI to conduct workshops for MSMEs across India

Flipkart partners with FICCI to conduct workshops for MSMEs across India to help them grow their business

●     Series of informational events and workshops for MSMEs across India, starts with Ahmedabad on November 21, 2019

●     Aim & theme of workshop ‘Winning Big on E-commerce’ seeks to familiarise MSMEs with e-commerce, the support available to MSMEs, besides knowhow on building brands and best practices

●     MSMEs will get to interact directly with Flipkart leadership to understand how e-commerce can help them grow their businesses

 Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace, has partnered with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) to launch a workshop series across India for MSMEs to help them leverage e-commerce to grow their business. Starting with Ahmedabad on November 21, 2019, Flipkart and FICCI will host a series of workshops on the theme of ‘Winning big with e-commerce,’ wherein MSMEs can understand how the e-commerce marketplace can help them build their businesses and increase brand visibility.

India is home to over 60 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which contribute close to 30% of the country’s GDP and are crucial drivers of job creation and economic growth. The developing e-commerce industry provides a new business opportunity for these entrepreneurs, many of whom are unfamiliar with how to sell online and do not get a chance to regularly interact with online marketplaces to clear their doubts. Flipkart and FICCI’s workshops are designed to address these two pain points.

Flipkart representatives will advise attendees on e-commerce specific accounting and taxation issues, access to capital, how to identify new opportunities, the importance of brand building online, how to build and scale their brands, and supply chain management and inventory planning for e-commerce. Through these workshops, MSMEs will learn more about how to expand beyond their physical brick-and-mortar presence to a pan-India customer base of over 200 million. Flipkart aims to host over 10 such events to begin with, across cities such as Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Nagpur and more.

“Flipkart has always been committed to empowering MSMEs and domestic manufacturers to succeed in India. As a homegrown company, we know that MSMEs play a key role in job creation and India’s economic development, and we understand the importance of giving these businesses an avenue for sustained, faster growth. We have a mission to democratize e-commerce in India supported by innovation and technology and create lasting benefits in the country. We aim to create a robust ecosystem to enable this growth, and familiarizing and supporting MSMEs with the benefits of e-commerce is an essential step in this direction. We look forward to partnering lakhs of MSMEs and bring them into the e-commerce fold over the coming months,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO - Flipkart Group.

“MSMEs are one of the key drivers of India’s economic growth; they contribute significantly to the country’s growth, through developing manufacturing and local employment. The development of this sector is a key focus area for the Government of India, as is the strengthening of the digital economy. E-commerce has the potential to serve both these aims, and transform the MSME sector. We are pleased to work alongside Flipkart in this initiative, and we are confident of its benefits to MSMEs across India,” said Rajiv Vastupal, Immediate Past Chairman, FICCI Gujarat State Council.

The partnership with FICCI is the latest in the many steps taken by Flipkart towards making e-commerce more inclusive and bringing India’s myriad small businesses and sellers online. Flipkart has recently revamped its seller financing and onboarding programmes to simplify the process of selling online for MSMEs.