Flipkart Launches Marketplace to Entice Vendors

Flipkart has launched Marketplace. It is mainly a place for vendors to sign-up and sell directly to customers. The shipping will be handled by Flipkart’s own logistics partner. That basically means with Marketplace, Flipkart will now allow third-part vendors to sell their merchandise online.

With this step it joins eBay India, SnapDeal which also have similar e-commerce marketplaces. It also becomes a lot similar to how Amazon works in the US, where it allows vendors to sign-up and augment their own offers.

How to signup to Flipkart Marketplace as a vendor?

• At the moment there is no automated place to sign-up and fill in your details. It requires vendors to send in an email to [email protected] to get an invite..
• The account username seems to either be an email address, display name or a phone number. I guess these three could be used to register as an vendor.
• There seems to little or no information about how this process works except that vendors will use Flipkarts own logistics setup.

Flipkart Marketplace might threaten smaller e-Commerce

Though Flipkart has bought some big e-commerce sites like LetsBuy and offered a MP3 store along with a digital bookstore to leverage itself against other e-commerce sites, it was still losing out to smaller websites offering unique and niche products. Getting vendors into the action will help it offer a wider variety of products to customers.

Usually Flipkart was known for its quality of service – especially the last mile delivery mechanism. I was once joking with a friend that looking at their reliability of their in-house delivery service, they should also offer courier service. I guess in a way that is what Flipkart is doing. It is leveraging its infrastructure and increasing the variety of products it offers by getting vendors into its fold.

Sites like e-Bay India which also have vendors selling stuff, often do it for a lot lesser price than say Flipkart. It will be interesting to see if Flipkart allows vendors to sell products at rates that are lower than what they themselves are offering.

Have you registered as a vendor on Flipkart or know someone who has? We would love to hear more inputs you might have in your comments.

Link: Flipkart Marketplace