Flipkart connects furniture clusters across India to millions of customers ahead of the festive season
Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has onboarded several micro, small and medium sellers from furniture clusters from across the country to connect them to millions of consumers ahead of the festive season and the Big Billion Days. These clusters are spread across Churu (Rajasthan), Saharanpur(UP), Jabalpur and Indore (MP) and Surat (Gujarat) to name a few and specialise in wood, metal and plastic furniture.
As part of the process, Flipkart has established small pick up hubs across these clusters to connect their sellers to its large supply chain, thereby giving them access to a pan-India consumer base. This becomes essential as most of these sellers operate at a micro level which limits their ability to serve a large number of consumers and lack of bandwidth and business know-how restricts their expansion beyond the clusters.
By onboarding with Flipkart, they will be able to leverage Flipkart’s onboarding support, technical expertise, consumer insights, and marketplace constructs for enhanced business growth and continuity.
Nishant Gupta, Senior Director, BGMH and Furniture, Flipkart, said, “India has several furniture clusters that offer authentic, indigenous furniture items and contribute substantially to their local economies. However, lack of market access restricts their ability to serve a larger customer base. As a homegrown e-commerce marketplace, it is our endeavour to support these sellers by connecting them to millions of our consumers across the country and help them scale up their business. Their onboarding ahead of the festive season and the Big Billion Days will also play a crucial role in reviving their business which got impacted heavily due to the COVID-induced pandemic.”
As the online furniture industry is witnessing a jump in demand for items across product categories due to the rise of work and learn from home, the onboarding of these sellers will help cater to a market beaming with demand and also support consumers in accessing quality and affordable furniture. Demand is also spreading out to other categories gradually such as living and bedroom furniture, spelling out great opportunities for these sellers.
This will contribute to expanding the furniture selection at Flipkart which currently stands at over 3.5 lakh products and delivers to 100% of the serviceable pincodes across the country with installation services in over 9,000 major pincodes. Complemented by affordable payment constructs such as Flipkart pay Later, No Cost EMI and Debit card EMI which drive affordability.
These efforts also tie in to the government’s clarion call of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ or Self-dependent India and Flipkart aims to strengthen the micro, small and medium sellers who form the backbone of India’s economy. The government also announced an enhanced focus on the furniture sector among 10 other sectors in ramping up the ‘local’ manufacturing capacities.
