Almost 90% of sellers of Flipkart have returned on the platform to resume their online business after adhering to the lockdown rules. Flipkart has also witnessed 125% increase in new sign-up of sellers in the months of April and June. Sellers that were forced to reconsider their selling strategies when India was under a lockdown is what has caused the increase in the seller sign-ups.
The maximum seller sign-ups are from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra. The sellers have listed under categories such as food and nutrition, home improvement products, personal care items, and women clothing.
Flipkart has encouraged these MSME sellers by offering them different schemed such as health insurance plans covering their employees and family members for Covid-19. The annual premium for the insurance plans starts from Rs 369, and the coverage is for Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 3,00,000.
Flipkart is also offering these sellers loans through their program known as Growth Capital, which offers credit at low-interest rates, approval within 24 hours, and disbursal in 48 hours only.
The sellers can also claim a certain amount as “compensation for unfair losses” that they incurred because of the lockdown, under the Flipkart Seller Protection Fund.
The Indian government in the month of May had offered an economic booster for the MSME sector, where they offered collateral-free loans worth Rs. 3 lakh crore with a moratorium on the payment for one year. After the lockdown, many online platforms had helped small sellers to sell their products, including Flipkart.
Conclusion:
Fresh signups on Flipkart will help small sellers to recover the losses they incurred in the lockdown. This will overall help the Indian economy also to slowly get back on track, after incurring heavy losses in the lockdown.
