Flipkart’s current focus is on expanding the home and kitchen catalogue, Ankit Nagori, Vice President – Marketplace said.
Briefing presspersons about the eCommerce portal’s plans, he said the expansion in the home and kitchen catalogue would include furniture and expansion in product selection in the said category.
Nagori was in the city to apprise MSMEs on the advantages of growing their business through eCommerce.
The workshop was conducted by Flipkart in association with Texpreneurs Forum, the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore and Sripuram, a registered charitable trust.
Emphasising the advantages that the micro and small manufacturing units located in this region would derive from registering with Flipkart, he said “it would help entrepreneurs become self-reliant and scale their business manifold within a short span of time”.
Flipkart, he said, saw big opportunity in the online marketplace for textile, clothing and apparel manufacturers, among others.
“We are in an advanced stage of discussion with the fashion and clothing industry. While there are many small manufacturers in this space, national brands are few. This platform would provide such entrepreneurs an opportunity to establish a niche for themselves and expand their reach pan-India,” Nagori said.
“Flipkart is looking to conduct knowledge sessions, seminars, workshops and skill development programmes to educate online sellers; we will provide them online tools, extend marketing support for listed products, share data on market trends and help in customer acquisition; we will provide cataloguing and packaging services as well,” he added.
Answering a query, he said “we have over 18 million registered users, 3000+ sellers, 15 million products spread over 70+ categories and monthly shipments of over 5 million. We want to add more sellers and take it to 12000 by March 2015”.