Flipkart will soon be handing out gold, silver and bronze to its sellers! No, we aren’t talking about the precious metals. The Indian ecommerce leader is going to grade its sellers based on their performance in the above mentioned (metals) three categories.
Every quarter starting from the end of November 2016, sellers on Flipkart will be rated on their product quality, cancellations, violations and product returns. Based on the scores received for each of the parameters, sellers will be ranked under ‘Gold, Silver and Bronze’ categories. The aim is to provide a useful tool to make the decision-making process a little easier for its customers.
Elaborating further on the new program for vendors, Flipkart’s head of marketplace Anil Goteti elucidated,
“We’ve been looking at how to drive our quality for customers higher over the last year or so. Over the festive season, we wanted to launch this programme. This is a very exciting programme and a first of its kind in Indian e-commerce. What we are doing is basically rewarding and encouraging our quality sellers by clearly defining what is the criteria or the status that we would like to give them.”
While this plan is essentially designed to improve customer experience, Flipkart will also give incentives to sellers.
Some of the rewards/incentives that Flipkart claims to offer:
Goteti explained,
“Based on this criteria or status, whether it’s a gold seller or a bronze seller, we are giving them some exciting benefits. At the heart of the programme is a drive to incentivize sellers and give them an understanding on what it takes to move higher and enjoy more benefits. Shipping fees is a big component in many sellers’ P&L, particularly in e-commerce—for gold sellers, we are offering a 20% discount on the forward shipping fee.”
The bottom-line is that sellers who’ll help Flipkart to improve its Net Promoter Score (NPS) and increase the marketplace’s revenue & GMV will get rewarded.
On one hand, Flipkart is going to roll out incentives and discounts; on the other hand the marketplace has increased its commission rates for few categories. Although, the commission rates for product categories such as microwave ovens and washing machines have been slashed down by the etailer.
Speaking about the hiked seller charges, Goteti said,
“As a marketplace, we have been looking at newer policies and commissions and we do that every quarter. As part of this roll-out today, we are making a few changes to our commissions as well. In fact, in a lot of categories, we are actually slashing rates—such as microwaves and washing machines. In a few categories, we are also increasing rates.”
American ecommerce giant, Amazon too revised its seller fees recently.
Will Flipkart’s reward program benefit sellers? Will the seller rankings be transparent? Or is it just another strategy to promote its own sellers or the vendors that agree to all their terms & conditions? Sellers, what’s your take on this? Let us know.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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