Flipkart is boosting rural India’s economy with a new generation of artisans, weavers and handicraft makers India has a long and unique art history, with several indigenous crafts and practices passed down across generations of artisan communities.
India’s millions of artisans, weavers and micro-entrepreneurs form a big part of the country’s economy. Flipkart Samarth, launched in 2019 to bring India’s artisans, weavers and micro-enterprises into the e-commerce fold, is today making a positive difference to over a million livelihoods.
Flipkart Samarth focuses on women and rural entrepreneurs, artisans and weavers – including the differently-abled – who often face challenges in accessing working capital, infrastructure, and digital training.
Samarth aims to ease their entry into e-commerce and empower them to leverage technology for driving change and bringing their local products and handicrafts online. Along with running awareness campaigns to reach out to potential sellers to join the platform, Flipkart has also provided the Samarth partners with consumer feedback on scaling and improving product quality to help them enhance their earnings through the platform.
Sellers from different parts of India can benefit from Flipkart Samarth.
Shashank is a seller hailing from the city of Nagpur. His father wanted to start his own business after retirement. So they began with manufacturing, designing and selling their own brand of ethnic wear such as kurta and pajamas for men. Having been working in the IT sector, Shashank was aware of the power and the advantage that digitization and e-commerce platforms bring to businesses.
A few years after selling their products offline, Shashank decided to support his father’s business by moving it online on Flipkart. During the dedicated Samarth sale event hosted by Flipkart in January 2022, Shashank’s business witnessed a 120 percent growth in sales and a revenue of over 6 lakh. He aims to generate a revenue of one crore during ‘The Big Billion Days’ this year, compared to the 30 lakh revenue in 2021.
“We are very happy that we had the courage to adopt the online marketplace to explore our potential. We wish to set up our entire business online someday, making the shift to go completely digital. One of our business goals is to also expand our category and offerings to include more varieties and women’s clothing for our customers and establish ourselves as the go-to fashion brand for allâ€, he adds.
Keshav Jethanand Khushalani is a 48 year old electrical engineer and businessman from Nagpur who has been able to overcome challenges in life and run a successful business that deals with sales of electronic products online.
Motivated and encouraged by the stories of the growth of sellers shifting to online retail, he started his online journey with his son Rahul in 2014, with an investment of meager INR 2 lakh. He witnessed his business take flight on Flipkart in just a year, in 2015, receiving a turnout of 3.4 crores. Through persistence and hard work, he now receives about 200 to 300 orders per day and has been seeing an annual turnover of about INR 84 crores since 2020.
He believes that the online channel has helped him reach heights he never thought he would, with him receiving orders from all parts of the country. “The various benefits offered to me by Flipakrt, such as the support and guidance of account managers on warehousing space and national customer reach has boosted the sales and helped my business flourish. I have been making consistent profits every month. I wish to double my sales every coming yearâ€, says Keshav.
Under the Samarth program, Flipkart works with several Government entities, livelihood missions, independent sellers and NGO partners to onboard rural entrepreneurs onto its platform. Flipkart is further making the e-commerce experience seamless, with the Flipkart app available in 11 Indian language interfaces including Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and more. Through this, Flipkart is truly bringing technology to democratize and empower the under-served sections of the society.
