NEW DELHI: In a bid to penetrate deeper into the country’s hinterlands, Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday launched ‘Samarth’, an initiative to bring weavers, artisans and makers of handicrafts to its platform. The company is looking for alliance with state cooperatives as well as encouraging individual sellers to list their products on the platform and create their own brands.
“Through Flipkart Samarth, we are helping traditionally underserved communities access a pan-India market and engage with over 150 million customers,” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of Flipkart Group, said. The initiative, he added, will help the e-commerce giant partner with the government and add impetus to social empowerment schemes. Flipkart also claimed that this initiative could give such communities access to its Indian customer base of over 150 million.
Present on the occasion was Anurag Thakur, Minister of State, Finance and Corporate Affairs, who said, “bringing our local sellers, helping them build their brand and guiding them through the supply chain process will go a long way in building a robust e-commerce ecosystem and strengthen the ‘Made in India’ brand.” Three out of four customers are expected to be from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, he said.
As part of the new initiative, Flipkart Samarth will also work closely with NGOs as well as livelihood missions to reach a large number of rural entrepreneurs, with a special focus on women-led enterprises, differently abled entrepreneurs, artisans and weavers.
Flipkart said it is in discussions with 5-7 Indian states, including Himachal Pradesh. As part of a bigger deal, the company will eventually sell these products in the international market. The company claims to be having around 1 lakh sellers on its platform.