Flipkart expands last-mile reach with 3,000 hubs ahead of festive season

This would strengthen the e-commerce firm's presence in tier-III cities and beyond

Ahead of the festive season and the ‘Big Billion Days’ sale event, e-commerce giant Flipkart has significantly expanded its supply chain across the country. The Walmart-owned firm has increased its last-mile reach with more than 3,000 facilities across the country. This would enable the company to provide a fast and efficient e-commerce experience to consumers this festive period especially in tier-2 cities and tier-3 cities. This expansion will also help several sellers, MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and artisans from smaller towns to connect with a pan-India consumer base through Flipkart’s supply chain. 

“The pandemic has accelerated the expansion of our supply chain across the country, particularly smaller cities, to meet growing demands for e-commerce services,” said Amitesh Jha, senior vice-president, Ekart and Marketplace, Flipkart. “Also, keeping in mind the growth of e-commerce over the next few years, this expansion will enable us to connect millions of consumers across the country with lakhs of sellers and artisans in a fast and efficient manner.”

 

Overall, Flipkart has added over 3.4 million square feet space across its supply chain assets including fulfilment centres, mother hubs and delivery centres throughout the country. These large fulfilment centres, spanning across an area of up to 500,000 square feet each, are crucial to ensuring a seamless movement of goods between sellers and buyers.

These fulfilment centres along with mother hubs or sortation centres and delivery centres also contribute to large scale creation of direct and indirect employment across the country. With this addition, the total warehousing space for Flipkart now totals to over 18 million square feet in addition to hundreds of thousands of square feet of assets from partner brands. This has been further strengthened with the onboarding of over 50,000 kiranas across the country. They will help manage a higher number of shipments during the festive season.

Employee working at Flipkart warehouse

 

“During the festive season, this additional space and infrastructure investment will also boost local employment, particularly for people who went back to their hometowns due to the lockdown, and create opportunities for local businesses to scale up their operations significantly with Flipkart,” said Jha.

This expanded network of supply chain assets is important to serve the millions of new consumers from smaller cities who are coming online to experience the value and convenience of e-commerce. 

It also helps strengthen Flipkart’s presence in metros as well as tier 2 and 3 cities and beyond such as Ladakh, Bishnupur (Manipur), and Dimapur (Nagaland), while creating thousands of local job opportunities. 

This festive season, Flipkart is creating nearly 70,000 direct jobs and several more indirect jobs through its pan-India supply chain.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about tectonic shifts in consumer purchase patterns. It has accelerated sellers’ transition to online platforms across products categories as they look for an enhanced role in e-commerce in their lives.

From essentials such as groceries to grooming products, WFH (work from home) furniture to home appliances, e-commerce has become the preferred choice for consumers and sellers across the country. 

Before the pandemic, the metros accounted for a large percentage of consumers shopping online. Experts said the pandemic has now accelerated the transition of consumers and sellers from tier-2 and tier-3 markets to e-commerce. 

Highlights:

. Flipkart expands last-mile reach with more than 3,000 facilities

. This will help Flipkart connect lakhs of sellers with millions of consumers across the country

. It also helps strengthen Flipkart’s presence in tier-II, III cities and beyond

. These include places such as Ladakh, Bishnupur (Manipur), and Dimapur (Nagaland)

. The total warehousing space for Flipkart now totals to over 18 million square feet