Flipkart launches Shopsy app for small entrepreneurs
Shopsy users will be able to share catalogues of 15 crore products offered by Flipkart sellers, ranging across categories such as fashion, beauty, mobiles, electronics and home, among others with potential customers via popular social media and messaging apps
PremiumBengaluru: Walmart-owned Flipkart has launched Shopsy, an app to help individuals start online businesses without any investment, and also deepen e-commerce penetration, particularly in non-metros.
After registering on the app, Shopsy users will be able to share catalogues of 15 crore products offered by Flipkart sellers, ranging across categories such as fashion, beauty, mobiles, electronics and home, among others with potential customers via popular social media and messaging apps.
Users can register on the app using their phone numbers, and begin their online entrepreneurial journey, Flipkart said.
With Shopsy, Flipkart aims to enable over 25 million online entrepreneurs by 2023 on the back of digital commerce, where they can set up their business as long as they have access to a network of people that trust them.
Shopsy users can share catalogues with potential customers via popular social media and messaging apps, place orders on their behalf and earn commissions on the transactions. The commission percentage will vary depending on the category of products being ordered.
Flipkart said the new platform aims at providing digital commerce consumers access to products by simplifying the process through interactions with a trusted person.
“We are opening up Flipkart's years of e-commerce expertise with this. Entrepreneurs can utilize Flipkart's catalog as well as its delivery networks and infrastructure. Flipkart will deliver the products. As a e-marketplace, we are a conduit between sellers and customers and introduce all kinds of interfaces, products and modules," Prakash Sikaria, senior vice-president - growth and monetization, Flipkart said in an interview.
Despite Flipkart’s pan-India reach, Sikaria said if barriers in e-commerce were to be considered, trust and simplicity play an important part.
“In Tier 2 and 3 cities, assisted buying or intermediaries can play an important role in better e-commerce penetration, just the way influencers work in metros," Sikaria added.
Globally, ‘distributed commerce’ as a channel has helped solve these problems and has seen tremendous growth. Shopsy’s objective is to power e-commerce for communities and third-party channels where these users spend time or trust, Flipkart said.
With the onset of the pandemic, many individual entrepreneurs have struggled to operate and faced logistical on-ground challenges that stalled their businesses to take off. The pandemic also induced a structural shift in the way they conduct business, consumers shop and persuaded many small and micro businesses to adopt digital commerce to remain profitable. This also created an opportunity for innovative e-commerce models that helps these businesses become digital brands, catering to pan-India customer bases.
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