Flipkart woos sellers with more initiatives to take on Amazon

Flipkart is rolling out a number of initiatives for its seller partners, including reduced commissions and a soon-to-be launched benefits scheme for merchants exclusive to its platform as the e-commerce giant looks to stay ahead of its rival Amazon.

Flipkart Director (Marketplace) Nishant Gupta said the company has taken a number of steps over the last one year to improve customer experience as well as that of sellers on its platform.

"There were multiple pain points in seller support. And so, over the last one and a half years, we have made significant investments in technology and support to ensure that sellers have a good experience," Gupta told PTI.
 

This has resulted in an increase in net promoter score (willingness of customers to recommend a company's products) measured internally to 70.

Flipkart has over one lakh sellers on its platform.

"We are working on something for sellers who are exclusive on our platform. It would chart out the expectations that we would have from the sellers and what would they get from Flipkart in return," Gupta said.

While he declined to divulge further details, Gupta said the programme could be launched in the next couple of months on a pilot basis.

According to industry watchers, a programme for exclusive sellers could include more perks and lesser commission among other benefits for merchants that choose to sell exclusively through Flipkart.

This, they said, would not only increase the selection on Flipkart's platform but also compete more aggressively against rival Amazon.

Flipkart has also scaled up its rewards and recognition programme to present cars, mobile phones and holiday trips to best-performing sellers.

Talking about recent initiatives, Gupta said earlier this month, the company had reduced commissions by 4-5 per cent in various categories for products priced under Rs 500.

In April too, it had reduced some charges that helped in a reduction of up to Rs 24 per shipment.

"Economies of scale ensure that bottomlines don't get impacted," he said.

Gupta said Flipkart has launched a priority seller support service, introduced a 'tier' system for sellers and invested in fulfilment centres.

"Besides these, we offer data intelligence to our sellers, which is most important. This provides insights on movement of various items and the sellers can plan better and grow their business," he added.