Flipkart expands last-mile reach with 3K facilities

Ahead of the festive season and the ‘Big Billion Days’ sale event, e-commerce giant Flipkart has significantly expanded its supply chain across the country. The Walmart-owned firm has increased its last-mile reach with more than 3,000 facilities across the country.

This would enable the company to provide a fast and efficient e-commerce experience to consumers this festive period, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. This expansion will also help millions of sellers, MSMES (micro, small and medium enterprises) and artisans from smaller towns to connect with a pan-indian consumer base through Flipkart’s supply chain.

“The pandemic has accelerated the expansion of our supply chain across the country, particularly smaller cities, to meet the growing demands for e-commerce services,” said Amitesh Jha, senior vice-president, Ekart and Marketplace, Flipkart. “Also, keeping in mind the growth of e-commerce over the next few years, this expansion will enable us to connect millions of consumers across the country with millions of sellers and artisans in a fast and efficient manner.”

Overall, Flipkart has added over 3.4 million sq. feet space across its supply chain assets, including fulfilment centres, mother hubs and delivery centres throughout the country. These large fulfilment centres, spanning across an area of up to 500,000 sq. feet each, are crucial to ensuring a seamless movement of goods between sellers and buyers.

These fulfilment centres, along with mother hubs or sortation centres and delivery centres, also contribute to large scale creation of direct and indirect employment across the country. With this addition, the total warehousing space for Flipkart now totals to over 18 million sq. feet in addition to millions of square feet of assets from partner brands. This has been further strengthened with the onboarding of over 50,000 kiranas across the country. They will help manage a higher number of shipments during the festive season.

“During the festive season, this additional space and infrastructure investment will also boost local employment, particularly for people who went back to their hometowns due to the lockdown, and create opportunities for local businesses to scale up their operations with Flipkart,” said Jha.

This expanded network of supply chain assets is important to serve the millions of new consumers from smaller cities who are coming online to experience the value and convenience of e-commerce.