India’s textiles ministry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the e-commerce major Flipkart through the office of the Development Commissioner for Handlooms.
As part of this exclusive agreement, Flipkart will be listing products from rural Indian handloom weavers and craftsmen on its platform. The ministry mentions that weavers will sell their products under their brand name and Flipkart (or its business partners) will set up collection centers to collect theses products from the weavers and artisans.
Flipkart will also provide them with infrastructural support in data analytics, marketing and customer acquisition to scale up their business. This includes providing market intelligence and data analytics to artisans in areas like deciding the right selling price, payment automation, proper packaging, transportation, and brand building exercises.
Flipkart’s tie-up with FISME & NCDPD: This tie-up is quite similar to Flipkart’s MoU with FISME (Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises) and NCDPD (National Center for Design and Product Development) in June this year. Flipkart had mentioned that it will be listing products from 50,000 SMEs as part of this initiative. Besides this, it will also provide infrastructural support in data analytics, marketing and customer acquisition.
Flipkart DGET tie-up: Earlier this month, Flipkart had also signed a MoU with the Director General of Employment and Training (DGET), Ministry of Labour and Employment to help Indian MSMEs scale their businesses by leveraging its platform.
Through this initiative, Flipkart and DGET are expected to provide basic training regarding e-marketplaces, accounting, cataloguing, logistics, order and returns management, customer handling and warehousing, among other things. Also, some of the skilled participants are likely to find employment opportunities with Flipkart or one its business partners.
Similar initiatives
- Small trade associations in India that were against FDI in e-commerce, had agreed to sell their products on eBay India, in May this year. The list of associations include: Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), Engineering Export Promotion Council, GJEPC (Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council), Jaipur Jewellers Association, Delhi Hindustan Merchantile Association, Eastern UP Exporters Association, Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce, Tirupur Exporters Associations, Surat Diamond Association, District Industries Centre, Thrissur and Vijayawada Chamber of Commerce, among others.
-Earlier this month, National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) launched a B2C e-commerce site called msmeshopping.com, with the objective of helping Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India to sell their products online. The site was being positioned as a low-cost marketing platform for MSMEs and was expected to enable them to sell retail products as well as industrial equipment and machineries.
-Incidentally, Snapdeal also recently launched an initiative branded The Craft Collective, in association with the NGO Ode to Earth, to provide indigenous artisans a platform to sell their products.