Flipkart gears up for the festive season

Etailer Flipkart is gearing up to attract shoppers with new sellers, personalized offerings, video conferencing facilities and improved logistic services, for the upcoming festive season sale that begin from October 16, with its flagship event the Big Billion Days. Reports suggest, Flipkart expects more value-seeking buyers from small towns during its six-day sale period. To cater to their demand, the e-tailer has launched services in several regional languages including Tamil, Hindi and Kannada besides instilling a voice and natural language technology to drive adoption.

This festive season, Flipkart plans to focus on social selling, gaming and video offerings. The platform aims to add value by introducing a wider and affordable product selection led by small local businesses, says Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Officer. It also plans to work closely with local governments to optimize safe order fulfilment amid the pandemic.

For Big Billion Days sales, Flipkart has added over 3.4 million sq. ft. space across supply chain assets1; roped in 50,000 kiranas for deliveries, partnered with 60 brands to ship goods faster, and doubled its seller base, reveals Amitesh Jha, SVP - eKart and marketplace. The e-com company has launched a new initiative, Brand Advantage, which allows sellers to store inventory in brand’s own warehouses across the country.

To attract more sellers from small towns online, Flipkart is helping several first-time small businesses to launch operations online, says Jagjeet Harode, Senior Director, Flipkart. It is introducing new programs to enable businesses launch more categories and onboard new SMEs.

Personalization is another aspect that helps Flipkart drive sales from existing customers. For Big Billion Days sale, the e-tailer has scaled up personalized offerings through technology, value-driven shopping and expanding its assortments to customers from smaller cities. The festive sale will push the e-tailer’s active online shopper base in India to 160 million, says RedSeer Consulting.

Flipkart employees will create virtual war rooms across cities. The e-tailer will ramp up its partnerships with value brands such as Bata and Max Fashion to offer more choice to consumers at lower price points. It will also source products from local markets through the Flipkart Quick service launched in July. Merchant kiranas will help the firm provide faster deliveries to customers in metros.

Though electronics and smartphones will continue to dominate Flipkart’s sales this season, demand for fashion will also increase with around 40 per cent of new shoppers looking to buy more comfort and lounge wear, says Nishit Garg, Vice-President-Fashion, Flipkart.

As the furniture category will also see a surge in demand, Flipkart has doubled the total number of furniture sellers on its platform besides increasing seller count by 30 per cent. It has also doubled its warehousing capacity to reach 100 per cent serviceable pin codes, with most of them being in Tier II and III cities. To add to the convenience of its buyers, the e-tailer has launched ‘Pay Later’ products and expert chat on its listing pages, for quicker resolution of doubts, informs Manish Kumar, Senior Vice President-furniture.

The firm has partnered with international brands to launch around 320 private brands across babycare, fast-moving consumer goods, sports and fitness, electronics and other categories, adds Dev Iyer, Vice-President, Private Brands. Ankur Bisen, Senior Vice-President, Technopak says, as the pandemic has impacted imports from China, e-commerce firms will have to deal with several supply chain disruptions this year.