Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, has strengthened and expanded its supply chain across the country in the run-up to the festive season to cater to the growing needs of millions of consumers coming online and to support market access for lakhs of MSMEs, sellers, artisans, and kiranas. Towards this effort, Flipkart has added 66 new large-scale fulfillment and sortation centers across the country in the states of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal.
In addition to this, Flipkart has also strengthened its last-mile reach with the addition of more than 1,000 new delivery hubs (DH) across the country. The complexity and scale of the Big Billion Days require investments for capacity, storage, sorting, packaging, human resources, training, and delivery, which helps generate additional employment during the festive season. Flipkart has also strengthened the partnership with Kiranas as part of its ‘last-mile delivery partnership’ program and enabled them to become part of the technology-enabled digital ecosystem. This year, Flipkart is creating direct seasonal employment for more than 1,15,000 people of which 15% are women and people with disabilities.
Commenting on the role of E-commerce in the inclusive economic growth in the country, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group, said, “E-commerce has been an enabling force, bringing value and access for sellers and consumers alike. Our supply chain infrastructure and technology-enabled digital ecosystem plays a key role in enabling numerous possibilities by creating lakhs of new jobs, and offering reliable and tech-enabled transformation for traditional warehousing, helping lakhs of local sellers, MSMEs, Kiranas, farmers, and under-served communities to connect with a national market. Flipkart is at the fulcrum creating possibilities for India, driving industry and economy, and helping our sellers, artisans, and weavers deliver to the remotest parts of the country. We are committed to making a significant impact on infrastructure creation, employment generation, and creating an ecosystem of entrepreneurship.”
The festive season requires the supply chain to be scaled up to ensure a seamless movement of shipments across the country to support lakhs of sellers from all over India, helping them deliver an exceptional customer experience. Flipkart’s effort in expansion of supply chain is helping the sellers on one hand while also creating lakhs of direct and indirect jobs across the country.
Flipkart continues to prioritize the safety and well-being of its employees across its supply chain network and is taking COVID-19 appropriate measures along with vaccinations of the employees and their families.
Key Supply Chain expansion efforts for 2021 include:
- More than 100 facilities have been added from brand partners to help customers get faster deliveries
- The alternate delivery method of Kiranas as delivery partners strengthened with 1,00,000 Kirana partners
- Working with many third-party logistics partners across the country to create faster deliveries while creating indirect job opportunities
- Servicing customers across 17,700 pin codes through Jeeves with more than 8,000 trained service technicians for Mobiles, large appliances, furniture, and IT peripherals
In the past many months, e-commerce has played a vital role in reviving businesses and helping sellers strengthen their economic recovery, delivering products to customers in a safe and sanitised manner, and creating a multiplier effect on local job creation. The investments from Flipkart for the festive season will further augment these benefits for the entire ecosystem.