Flipkart Marketplace enhances its best-in-class seller-friendly policies to encourage digital adoption among MSMEs

by Priya Jadhav

● The policies focus on improving business cost-efficiency to support MSMEs’ sustainable growth, furthering the platform’s commitment towards the seller ecosystem

● The extended capabilities include Pricing Recommendations, Promotion Support, Insta Rewards, Fulfillment Support and Seller Support Experience aimed at greater clarity, control and transparency while building a more inclusive e-commerce ecosystem

● The enhanced policies build on a series of interventions introduced in 2022 to provide sellers with best-in-class solutions and support small and medium businesses in India

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Bengaluru – July 24, 2023: Flipkart, India's homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has enhanced its efforts towards fostering a more inclusive seller ecosystem with enhanced seller-focused policies aimed to strengthen MSME growth across the country. These policies under the ‘Flipkart EDGE’ initiative build upon the foundation laid in 2022. The program strongly focuses on helping businesses leverage the opportunity of online business and enhancing the ease of doing business on the Flipkart platform. With the implementation of these policies, the online seller ecosystem embarks on its next phase of growth by leveraging the immense potential offered by e-commerce.

The new policies aim to empower the seller ecosystem with enhanced clarity, control, and transparency through new features, including Pricing Recommendations, Promotions, Rewards Platform, Fulfillment and Speed Initiatives, and Guidance Assistance, which will help improve cost efficiency and sustainability of business operations on the Flipkart platform.

Rakesh Krishnan, Vice President and Head - Marketplace, Flipkart, said, “As India's homegrown e-commerce marketplace, our constant endeavor is to innovate, evolve and introduce policies that contribute to the success and prosperity of businesses on our platform. We are committed to making the digital transition for businesses on our platform more convenient and effortless through our best-in-class solutions. Introducing the new features under ‘Flipkart EDGE’ aim to provide continuous support to the seller community and foster sustained growth while enhancing the overall ease of doing business. Our technology-driven solutions and capabilities are designed to improve the convenience and efficiency of online business operations.”

Policy changes and tech capabilities for existing and new sellers on Flipkart Marketplace include:

1. Pricing Recommendation - The recommended pricing feature will suggest sellers about ideal prices for their products based on consumer insights, buying behavior, and market trends, which the sellers may choose to implement. This product feature has been made accessible to sellers from different touch points across the seller dashboard to identify appropriate price points to list their products, thereby helping them grow on the platform.

2. Promotions - This feature enhances transparency by displaying how promotions work and provides detailed information about the benefits and product offers thereby empowering sellers to gain control over their participation, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

3. Rewards Platform - The new rewards platform significantly enhances the seller’s reward experience by bringing in more clarity around incentives and their eligibility criteria, along with flexibility in meeting them. The new platform also provides for regular tracking, monitoring and governance of the rewards unlocking higher returns of investment and growth. It also significantly reduces the rewards payout cycle, enabling sellers to utilize the additional operating revenue to expand their businesses.

4. Fulfillment Support and Speed Initiative - To make order processing easier for sellers, the platform has introduced several features to reduce operating cost for the sellers and helps them use the right quality of packaging materials. Flipkart has worked on improving delivery speed to customers, enabling sellers to process more orders and effectively utilize their warehousing space resulting in increased capacity, timeliness and better ratings on the platform.

5. Seller Support Experience Guidance - Sellers will now have access to multimedia content in different languages on their dashboards owing to the ‘Guided assistance’ feature to solve issues they may be facing more effectively and timely. This year, the user interface was revamped with smart logic implemented on FAQ pages with detailed content to guide sellers making the portal more user-friendly.

6. Video commerce - To help sellers boost the visibility for their products and provide customers with better purchase experiences and product recommendations, video commerce has been enabled on the Flipkart platform for all its sellers. This feature has been provided to help them engage with the customers more and showcase their products through various formats such as reels, long-form videos, among others. Flipkart has also launched a dedicated creator app for sellers, which is making it convenient for them to unlock the true potential of video commerce that is gaining prominence in the Indian market.

A slew of industry-first strategic policies and capabilities introduced in two phases last year encouraged over 11 lakh sellers (including Shopsy) to join the platform, with a 220 percent increase in the seller base in 2022 compared to 2021. These capabilities are an extension of Flipkart's initiatives from the previous year, which included a streamlined onboarding process, simplified listing, and payment policies. The platform continues to invest in technology, innovation, supply chain, and operations to help MSMEs adopt digital, and these policy changes are consistent with Flipkart's commitment towards assisting entrepreneurs across the country.

Flipkart also launched its advertising campaign ‘Kuch Khaas Kamao’ recently. The campaign emphasizes how selling on Flipkart doesn't just enable successful business but also helps sellers earn time, trust and the priceless treasure of work-life balance. The pan-India campaign targets emerging sellers from tier 2 and 3 cities, who strive to achieve business excellence through e-commerce and eventually fulfill their dreams as an entrepreneur.