BENGALURU: Flipkart has pumped in Rs 2,190 crore into its wholesale arm Flipkart India, as per regulatory filings. This comes after the Singapore-based parent Flipkart invested Rs 4,472 crore in the wholesale arm in March this year.
The infusion from Singapore-based Flipkart came in on December 4 as per regulatory filings. Both Flipkart and Amazon use their wholesale units as distribution channels that source products from brands directly and then supply them to third-party sellers to sell on their marketplace platforms.
Industry experts say supplying through a wholesale arm gives ecommerce companies more control over the quality and supply chain, especially for de-risking key categories.
Flipkart India saw a revenue of Rs 21,438 crore in FY18, a 40% growth from the previous year. However, it was lower than the growth of Amazon Wholesale’s, which saw revenue jump 73% to Rs 12,224 crore in FY18.
According to a recent Barclays report, Amazon is growing much faster than Flipkart (82% vs 47%).
The frequent capital infusions point to the focus of both Flipkart and Amazon on their B2B platform to supply to sellers on its consumer marketplace, especially following change in guidelines restricting sales from a single seller to 25% of total sales.
The development was reported by ETRetail.com
