Flipkart to launch support centres in 20 cities by year end

BENGALURU: Online retailer Flipkart is planning to launch seller-support facilities in 20 cities by the end of this year, the company said.

The facilities, called ‘Flipkart One Stop’ will help sellers with various services like registration, training, cataloguing and packaging.

The service is currently available in 10 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Surat and Jaipur. Flipkart has roped in agencies like Browntape, Sellerworx, 99yrs.com, BluBox and Chikiweb to onboard sellers in various cities.

“This new initiative will help them streamline and simplify the processes to get their businesses up and running online within a short span of time,” said Ankit Nagori, chief business officer at Flipkart.

The company plans to get 50-60 such agencies onboard by the end of this year, said Nagori.

While Flipkart is looking to add one-lakh sellers by the year end, Snapdeal has said that it wants to get to 10-lakh merchants in three years from 1.5-lakh sellers currently and Shopclues wants to increase its merchant base from 1.25 lakh to 5 lakh by the end of 2015.

In July, Alibaba-backed Paytm said it has set aside $100 million to help sellers go online. The Noida-based mobile commerce platform is planning to subsidise sellers. Paytm is targeting one lakh sellers on its platform by the year end.