Twitter was chosen as a battle ground when Flipkart turned a deaf ear to its sellers questions, comments and requests for a revised commission and return policy. The day of #OnlineDharna has come and gone. The sellers who participated in the online campaign made a loud enough noise to get some attention but was it enough to change Flipkart’s mind?
Last week online sellers were requested by eSellerSuraksha (ESS) to join its campaign against Flipkart’s unjust commission structure. Flipkart sellers were asked to bring their stock down to zero for the day and mark 20 June as a holiday from Flipkart, where they wouldn’t process orders. Sellers were also asked to part in the #SellersQuitFlipkart and #OnlineDharna campaign on social media.
ESS acknowledged that 24 hours of non cooperation with the online platform would result in loss of some sales. However, the group said to sellers, “We must do this to protest against these irrational acts from Flipkart.”
Sellers lost their inspiration and hope in Flipkart and held nothing back as they reduced their inventory to zero and tweeted about it. Money Bhaskar stated around 1300 online sellers engaged in a complete stock out on Flipkart, this Monday. This was one of the very first virtual strikes under taken by online sellers. This made it a big day for them despite the small scale of their movement.
The #OnlineDharna campaign was the brain child of the lobby group ESS. The group requested members to support the campaign on social media and bring down their inventory to zero. Many of them did exactly that:
(Courtesy of ESS)
The hashtag picked up steam at the start of the day but slowly dropped as sellers tweeted their inventory status and criticized the new Flipkart Policy, then waited for a response.
ESS tweeted to online sellers asking how many were participating in #OnlineDharna and to retweet with screenshots of their delisted products and zero inventory.
Responses like the following came flooding in:
A seller from ESS said it would be great if marketplaces could educate buyer about size charts instead of advertising easy returns and fast returns. Maybe then they could all expect lower product returns.
(Obtained from ESS)
It’s a day after the online dharna what to the protesting sellers plan on doing now?
When spoken to about the seller protests, Flipkart’s spokesperson said, “The number of active listings from our sellers and units sold has seen an increase today (Monday). We have received a positive response to our new policy from a majority of our 90,000 sellers.”
The marketplace mentioned that it is confident of its policy and expects it to boost business for its sellers. All while empowering them to improve quality and multiply their base of loyal customers.
Haresh Chawla, partner at India Value Funds Advisors said, “I think this would have limited impact in the short term. No large seller is likely to abandon Flipkart since sellers want to maximise sales. However, on a longer term shows development of friction over commissions, returns and discounts which may impact customer experience at Flipkart.”
Customer satisfaction is something Flipkart’s rival Amazon knows more of and now the foreign marketplace may be looking into satisfying online sellers too with lower commissions.
Chawla sees a way out of this mess for Flipkart. He said, “The challenge for the VC-funded marketplaces is to drive down overheads so they can drive down seller commissions and not the other way round. Overheads would have to be reduced to thrive in our market.”
IOS spoke with two online sellers who participated in the dharna. Both sellers detest Flipkart’s commission structure however, their approaches differ greatly.
Online seller Shakti Gandhi said, “I m still with Flipkart, but from today morning we have added extra shipping charges to all our products (indirectly increased price by 20%). Also we are waiting for association like eSellerSuraksha and AIOVA for the next call. From now we are live with increased prices. You can actually see the price difference if you buy from Amazon.”
When asked why he wouldn’t leave the marketplace, he said, “It’s a big platform. We have our customer base, so can’t leave it for now. Yeah if every seller agrees, then we also can think about it.”
“We can’t protest from outside. So let’s increase prices. The Flipkart team will feel the heat when sales come down due to pricing.” He further added.
Rohit Singhal, another online seller, reduced his inventory by 90% long before the dharna.
He said, “In Jan, Flipkart had increased the commission on T-Shirts from 17% to 21% without even notifying us. Plus the additional 2.5% collection charge made it 23.5%. With such ever changing commission and policies I could no longer work with Flipkart and removed my products. With the return charges and collection charges on blind returns I can no longer work with Flipkart. As a matter of fact no apparel dealer can work ethically. We will have to charge 3 times the cost and consumers are no fools to pay such a price.
“Due to similar issues I have quit Snapdeal and Paytm long back.” He stated. Singhal now sells only on Amazon and is looking forward to try out TataCliq, Rauketen and Alibaba.
How do you feel you should react?
Leave a Comment
