Flipkart Starts Campaign To Improve Business Efficiency In India

Sundar Pichai - May 10, 2019

Flipkart's purpose is to provide customers with lower prices, at the same time reduce their supply chain costs

Statistics show that between 20% to 30% of registered sellers are active across big e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon. The Bangalore-based company is finding ways to lure sellers into improving regional utilization (RU), an industry metric of efficiency for e-commerce platforms.

Relisting Inactive Sellers

Flipkart-want-to-speed-up-the-delivery-process — Flipkart want to speed up the delivery process

The industry leader, Amazon has been implementing campaigns to widen their seller base, the action to get higher coverage of consumer basket. Same purpose, Flipkart is conducting surveys to find out why sellers stay inactive in their platform. The data will be used to take corrective measures, including seller training or improving seller policies, targeted to next Big Shopping Days sale this year.

This action will help Flipkart speed up the delivery process and reduce supply chain costs, boosting their business efficiency, according to the company.

Sellers To Leave Flipkart

Flipkart-encounters-a-bunch-of-issues-with-vendors — Flipkart encounters a bunch of issues with vendors

The platform, despite holding nearly 40% of the market share, encounters a bunch of issues with vendors. Sellers have delisted from the platform because of various reasons. The reasons include Flipkart’s complex onboarding process, unfair returns from customers, lower sales, high logistics costs and more.

A spokesperson from the All India Online Vendors Association reported that sellers were being penalized for incidents not under their control, and many mistakes were made such as wrongly calculated returns or consumer-initiated returns, all charged to sellers.

Improving Customer Experience

About 45% of Flipkart sellers come from non-urban areas, including small towns and cities. The company said that relisting these vendors would improve customer experience, showing examples of shortening the delivery distance. If a customer from Delhi orders a product, the company wants to ship it from sellers of the same city, instead of Mumbai, for example. This change provides customers with lower prices, at the same time reduces Flipkart’s supply chain costs.

Flipkart is trying to improve its long-tailed sellers base, which is crucial for business growth in this market. They already have alpha sellers on board for the fast-selling items.