Flipkart has been doubling down on its social commerce initiative Shopsy, with the launch of zero-commission marketplace and Shop & Earn feature. As Indians spend more and more time on social media platforms, social commerce is being hailed as the next frontier of growth for e-commerce companies. According to a 2020 report by Bain & Company, India’s social commerce sector is expected to be worth two times the size of the current e-commerce market within ten years.

Flipkart claims that 70 per cent of its customers come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. With Shopsy, the company aims to scale this to 90 per cent. BusinessLine spoke to Prakash Sikaria, Senior Vice-President, Growth and Monetisation, Flipkart, about the company’s growth plans for Shopsy.

Flipkart's Shopsy launches zero-commission marketplace

Trust is a major driver for the popularity of any internet company in Tier-2, 3 cities. Do you think all e-commerce companies would eventually have to integrate social commerce in their design to command the next level of growth?

Lack of trust has been one of the biggest roadblocks for e-commerce adoption for the next 200 million consumers in India. This gives rise to the need to break away from the traditional channels of e-commerce marketing, and take up the distributed commerce approach which doesn’t confine customers to just an app or a website. Considering the nascent social commerce in India and the expected CAGR of more than 50 per cent in the next five years, this is poised to be a great business opportunity.

Flipkart launches Shopsy to help entrepreneurs

Many online users in India do not transact online due to two key challenges — trust and simplicity. 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 offline-buying audiences spend their time and put their trust.

One of the major challenges of social commerce is seller retention and stickiness. How does Flipkart’s Shopsy plan to solve that?

The most important thing for any reseller on a social commerce platform like Shopsy is income generation from the platform. While they are focused on that, it becomes important to solve for access to selection and logistics management. We are focused on solving these pain points along with delivering technology that makes their business journey convenient. With Shopsy, resellers get access to Flipkart’s catalogue of 15 crore products across the pan-India marketplace, advertising tech to help build their visibility in the network, and Flipkart’s logistics network.

What percentage of Shopsy’s 2 lakh users are women? Do you see women sellers as a major growth driver in this segment?

With digital transformation, the concept of social commerce has worked well in tier-2 cities. Nearly three-fourths of the audience is on social media platforms, where around 30 per cent of users are female entrepreneurs and this is only growing. We are a democratic social commerce marketplace that is focused on driving the ambitions of entrepreneurs irrespective of their background and gender.

How many orders have been purchased through Shopsy since the launch?

The current average ticket size is about $10 and with the upcoming festive season, we aim to drive 20X times the growth. We believe Flipkart’s supply chain is cost-effective and reliable, with expertise developed over the years. We strongly believe, with our smooth operations and technology, this number will witness further growth as more and more entrepreneurs come online to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.

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