Flipkart aims to empower Indian artisans, weavers & craftsmen by bringing them online

India’s leading e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has introduced a breakthrough initiative called Samarth. With this, the Walmart-owned company aims to bring India’s artisans, weavers, and handicrafts producers onto e-commerce.

Flipkart Samarth is designed to support the e-commerce journey for artisans from on-boarding until they reach familiarity with the process of selling online. The new initiative offers a host of initiatives and benefits, including dedicated support for onboarding, cataloging, account management, business insights, dedicated seller support, reduced commission where eligible, and warehousing support.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said, “Through Flipkart Samarth, we are helping traditionally underserved communities access a 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. ‘Flipkart Samarth’ will leverage the increasing internet penetration in rural India to boost entrepreneurship and we are excited about the shared value we’re adding to the ecosystem with this initiative.”

Flipkart Samarth will be working closely with reputed NGOs and government bodies and livelihood missions in order to reach a large number of rural entrepreneurs, with a special focus on women-led enterprises, differently-abled entrepreneurs, artisans, and weavers, who often face obstacles like lack of access to working capital, poor infrastructure, and inadequate training.

Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of state for finance and corporate affairs, stated, “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 and as an example, ‘One District, One Product’ of UP and similar other initiatives of others states are an extension of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Bringing our local sellers, helping them build their brand and guiding them through the supply chain process will go a long way in building a robust E-Commerce ecosystem and the ‘Made in India’ brand.”