The e-commerce major's 1000-odd vendor community is not happy with new policies for sellers.
Flipkart’s new policies for sellers, particularly the decision to charge for goods returned by the buyers has not gone well with the 1,000-odd vendor community registered on its platform.
The traders are also unhappy with an increase in charges such as commission, shipping, collection and cancellation.
The vendors say that the new set of policies that come into effect from June 20, 2016, are very disappointing and not at all business-friendly.
Flipkart executives did not respond to queries on their returns policy, the rationale behind instituting the new policies and the possible impact on the business.
According to Sanjay Thakur, president, eSeller Suraksha, a body of 1,000 online sellers from across the country, the vendors are seeking roll-back of the new policies, but there is absolutely no clarity being offered by Flipkart as yet.
“What is surprising is that Flipkart is the only marketplace that has put in place such unfriendly policies. The sellers will be forced to increase prices by 25% if they have to conduct business on Flipkart. But that would also mean no buyers will buy the products once they know the same product is available at a lower price point on other portals. Accordingly, the other option is to focus efforts on other platforms and push sales on Amazon, Snapdeal, Paytm, etc. to compensate the loss of sale from Flipkart,” said Thakur, adding that the new policy is killing the sellers who have made Flipkart what it is today.
While vendors may not quit Flipkart in totality, it is very likely that majority of them will go inactive as a result of which transactions may get impacted. In fact, questions are also being raised on whether Flipkart would actually respond in any manner to concerns expressed by the 1,000-odd vendors.
Interestingly, Flipkart claims to have 85,000 sellers on its platform, but industry sources believe that the real number could be anywhere between 50,000 to 55,000.
“Out of which only 5,000 sellers are active and the 1,000-odd sellers that are protesting against the new policies make for a decent 20% of Flipkart’s active seller base. That’s a decent enough number for Flipkart management to take note of,” said an e-commerce industry expert.
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