Flipkart Samarth promotes Indian weavers & artisans

24 Nov '20

4 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Flipkart, India’s e-commerce marketplace, has created a special collection of products as part of their flagship initiative, Flipkart Samarth, to bring the rich and diverse art forms of India onto its e-commerce platform. This year’s festive season has been extra special for artisans, weavers, and handicraft makers across the country with customer demands.

Flipkart Samarth is designed with the intention of democratising e-commerce and building a sustainable and inclusive platform for under-served, domestic communities to empower them with greater opportunities and better livelihood. Through the initiative, Flipkart’s aim is to provide greater visibility to the made-in-India products on its platform, products that reflect the local diversity, culture and capabilities of a heritage-rich country. To drive greater visibility and promote the products available on the platform, the company has also created a dedicated storefront on its app/website so that consumers can get easy access to their desired products, according to a Flipkart press release.

Today, through Flipkart Samarth, the company is able to impact 7,00,000+ livelihoods. Over the last year, Flipkart Samarth saw a 12x growth in the number of partners who joined the programme. These artisans, who became part of Flipkart’s annual festive season sale this year, saw a 2.5x increase in comparison to their usual non-festive sale days. The demand for these products reflected the increasing trend of people supporting local products, with the top-performing categories for sellers of the Flipkart Samarth programme being ethnic wear, home decor and natural/organic beauty and grooming products. Encouraged by the success of sellers on the platform, Flipkart Samarth also saw artisans, craftsmen, and weavers from new cities (7x growth from last year), join the programme. 60 per cent of Flipkart Samarth’s partners are from Tier II and beyond, including cities such as Dharampuri, Palanpur, Ernakulum, Palghar, and Ambala, showcasing the spread of the programme across the country.

“The governments at the centre and states have played a critical and enabling role in helping these under-served seller communities become part of the Flipkart Samarth initiative on the marketplace. Such initiatives play a prominent role in promoting the government’s ‘vocal for local’ campaign, in turn helping build an ‘AtmaNirbhar India’. We are proud to be able to support the rich heritage of India and provide MSMEs, artisans and craftsmen an opportunity to leverage the power of e-commerce and also support flagship initiatives like ODOP in Uttar Pradesh,” Rajneesh Kumar, chief corporate affairs officer at Flipkart said.

Dhaval Patel, part of Navrang Handicrafts, is today empowering women artisans from his village by supporting them in selling their products on Flipkart, under the Flipkart Samarth programme. He has been witnessing almost 100 orders per day and is grateful for the festive season to boost the visibility of these handicraft products more. Similarly, Boyanika, which supports Odisha’s weavers’ community is now getting orders for their affordable range of locally produced cotton sarees, from across the country. The weavers associated with the brand are thrilled that their products are reaching every part of the nation, and they are getting larger visibility.

The programme has grown from strength to strength by way of multiple MoUs with Government bodies in the states of Jharkhand, Punjab, Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat and the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, along with an MoU with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to collaborate with their DAY-NULM initiative, spreading Flipkart Samarth’s reach to 23 states across the country.

Flipkart constantly assesses the pain points and aspirations of these groups, incorporating their needs and requirements so that MSMEs, artisans, weavers, rural entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs and other under-served communities continue to have an enriching seller experience across its various initiatives including Flipkart Samarth. Through such partnerships, the company is enabling livelihood opportunities for the handlooms and handicraft sectors and help uplift the economic conditions of this fraternity.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)

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