Flipkart Wholesale on Wednesday announced the launch of its operations. The platform that will cater to kiranas and MSMEs is currently available for fashion retailers, especially footwear and apparel, in Gurgaon, Delhi and Bengaluru, with plans to expand to Mumbai as well.
Flipkart Wholesale also aims to expand to 20 more cities and add categories such as home & kitchen appliances and grocery by the end of this year. There are plans afoot to rope in over 300 strategic partners and have over two lakh listings in two months. The platform will also enable the onboarding of 50 brands and over 250 local manufacturers in the coming days, the company said in a statement.
In July, Flipkart had announced the launch of Flipkart Wholesale to service the wide network of kiranas across the country. In a corporate restructuring exercise, Walmart India has been housed in Flipkart Wholesale.
Flipkart proposes to supply goods to kiranas, leveraging the expertise of Walmart India – a cash and carry business – that has been servicing kiranas for more than 10 years now. Walmart India runs 28 best price shops and caters to more than 1.5 million customers – kiranas and MSMEs.
“With the strong capability within the group in B2B, we will focus on meeting the needs of kiranas and MSMEs…whether in grocery, general merchandise or fashion, these businesses will have one-stop access to an extensive selection of products with attractive schemes and incentives, supplemented with data-driven recommendations for stock selection,” said Adarsh Menon, SVP and head, Flipkart Wholesale.
India’s 12 million kirana stores are becoming the cornerstone of growth plans for retailing giants like Reliance Retail, Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. They are increasingly teaming up with mom-and-pop stores to supply merchandise and also to help digitise their operations, empowering them to record customer preferences and stock SKUs accordingly.
