Flipkart Big Billion Days report card: 55% growth in new sellers; Wholesale arm sees 1.3X jump in kiranas

The growth in new seller base for Flipkart during the sale came from India’s hinterland.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Walmart-owned Flipkart on Sunday, in an update on its Big Billion Days sale performance so far, said that its new seller count grew over 55 per cent during the event in comparison to last year’s sale. Moreover, “with 1.3 times the number of transacting sellers this year, consisting of MSMEs, artisans, weavers, and craftsmen, more than 10 per cent of them witnessed a 3X growth in sales this year.” Flipkart had scheduled its sale from October 3 to October 10, 2021. Amazon had announced its month-long Great Indian Festival sale from October 3 onwards.

The company said ‘the top artisans and weaver partners’ from its Flipkart Samarth programme recorded a 6X growth this year from last year’s sale. The Samarth programme launched in 2019 focuses on bringing artisans, weavers, and micro-enterprises into the e-commerce fold. 

For its B2B arm Flipkart Wholesale, which caters to over 1.5 million kiranas, the company saw a 1.3X jump in the number of kirana and retail members onboarding the platform this Big Billion Days. “Indicating a shift in trend to digital commerce for B2B, over 45 per cent of Flipkart Wholesale’s customer base transacted online and 35 per cent of them opted for self-service,” the company said in a statement. Flipkart said it is aiming to make over 30 million deliveries through kirana delivery partners this festive season.

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“Our efforts to uplift the entire ecosystem also ushered in considerable growth opportunities for MSMEs, sellers and our lakhs of kirana partners, who benefited immensely from our various financial offerings, better revenues and an expanded reach across the nation,” said Nandita Sinha, Vice President – Customer and Growth, Flipkart.

The growth in new seller base during the sale came from India’s hinterland as 57 per cent said of these sellers hailed from Tier-II, Tier-III, and smaller cities and towns such as Jaipur, Surat, Howrah, Tirupur, and Panipat, among others. Flipkart said the most popular purchases were in lifestyle, electronics, books, and general merchandise, home, and mobiles category.

On the other hand, value e-commerce portal Snapdeal also announced on Sunday that its overall sales volume in its first ‘Toofani’ sale of the festive season went up by 98 per cent compared to last year. Nearly 60 per cent of its total orders came from Tier-III towns while close to 26 per cent orders belonged to Tier-I and Tier-II towns.