Programme supporting small businesses has grown 4 times: Flipkart

The programme currently supports over six lakh artisans, weavers and craftsmen across India and is working towards bringing more such sellers to the platform, the company said in a statement.

Flipkart on Friday said the company’s Samarth programme that aims to support small businesses has seen a nearly four times quarter-on-quarter growth since its launch in July last year. The firm’s other marketplace segments have been typically growing at 1.5 times to two times on a quarterly basis since the past five to six years.

The programme currently supports over six lakh artisans, weavers and craftsmen across India and is working towards bringing more such sellers to the platform, the company said in a statement.

Flipkart said it has introduced a host of new benefits for the sellers which include a commission waiver of 0% for the first six months for any Flipkart Samarth seller on-boarded to the platform. Further, they will be granted free cataloguing support for a limited number of products, advertising credits for the first month to help them garner prominent visibility on the platform among others.

“With the help of government partnerships, we have been able to bring artisans online from the remotest parts of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Punjab and Karnataka till now. We will be reaching out and bringing in many more institutions and individuals,” Jagjeet Harode, senior director and head of marketplace at Flipkart, said.

Harode said post unlock, queries from potential sellers have gone up by almost two times.