Flipkart’s logistics arm eKart will cater to brands, platforms and small and large businesses across the country, said the Walmart-owned company in a press statement.
The service will include end-to-end supply chain management, including dropship, inventory management, distribution, and aggregation. Further, through Jeeves - the services arm of Flipkart - it will provide end-to-end solutions (including installation, demo and repair services) for the after-sales needs of brands through its network of technical workforce across India.
eKart currently has a network of fulfilment centres, mother hubs or sortation centres, and thousands of delivery hubs across the country, and currently delivers close to 100 million shipments a month.
Hemant Badri, senior vice president of eKart, said, “As a supply chain that has grown and evolved with the e-commerce industry, we understand the unique opportunities and challenges present in the Indian market and are agile to evolve with them to provide the most efficient delivery service for businesses.”
In 2017 before it was acquired by Walmart, Flipkart made its first attempt to tie up with third-parties for eKart. Then the e-commerce giant had onboarded clients like Tata CLIQ, Voonik and Adidas. However, the offering was soon closed as they could not scale it up.
India’s last mile delivery constitutes of FMCG, ecommerce, retail and other categories. Of these, FMCG constitutes the highest followed by ecommerce, according to a report by market research firm RedSeer. The overall e-commerce shipments has grown from 817 million shipments in 2018 to 1,364 million shipments last year in 2020, and is expected to grow over 5,000 million shipments by 2025.
