Flipkart to empower artisans, weavers and craftsmen

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday announced a new initiative called 'Flipkart Smarth' to bring Indian artisans, weavers, and handicraft producers to its e-commerce platform. The e-tail company aims to open the national market for these communities. According to the company, Flipkart has a customer base of more than 150 million and with the help of NGOs, the e-commerce firm will help these communities to walk on the path of rural entrepreneurship.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO, Flipkart Group, said, "Through Flipkart Samarth, we are helping traditionally underserved communities access to pan-India market and engage with over 150 million customers. The initiative will help us partner with the government and add impetus to various social empowerment schemes."

The company has a special focus on women-led enterprise and will provide dedicated support for onboarding, cataloguing, account management, business insights, dedicated seller support, reduced commission, and warehousing support. The company went live with Samarth on its website and mobile app, which features handlooms, weaves, block-printing, embroidery, etc.

Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, who was also present at the event in New Delhi, said "Our government has taken a host of measures in the recent Budget and during the past few years to nurture the start-up ecosystem, support the MSME sector and encourage e-commerce platforms. I am happy to see a slew of private players including Flipkart have come forward and bridged the gap between local artisans, technology and the marketplace I firmly believe that India has much more to offer the world than what the world has offered to India".

Flipkart is not the only company in India which is closely working with rural communities, as its arch-rival Amazon also has a dedicated store on its website. Also, there are various other web start-ups that are doing similar work for such communities.

Zee Media Newsroom