Flipkart's Shopsy gets 250,000 sellers, 5.1 mn users in 100 days of launch

The social commerce platform has got immense response from sellers, resellers and consumers across the country, with the platform already observing 40x growth since launch

Flipkart said its social commerce offering Shopsy, has witnessed immense response from sellers, resellers and consumers across the country, with the platform already observing 40x growth since its launch. Within 100 days of its launch Shopsy has amassed over 250,000 sellers, 5.1 mn users and a catalogue of over 150 million products.

The Shopsy platform has already witnessed 16x growth in the first 4 days of The Big Billion Days festive event. During this period alone, the platform has seen 35x growth of the pre-festive daily average.

“Flipkart Group's locally developed technology, resilient supply chain, and deep consumer understanding has enabled Shopsy to scale as the leading social commerce platform within 100 days of its launch,” said Prakash Sikaria, senior vice president, growth and monetization, Flipkart.

Users who turned entrepreneurs this festive season on Shopsy, witnessed an average earnings growth of upto 30x this festive period. Some of the top user categories include fashion, home and mobiles categories, amongst others.  Resellers from Tier 2, Tier 3 cities such as Vadodara, Guntur, Agra onboarded Shopsy to start their entrepreneurial journey this festive season.

“We are seeing interesting trends with Shopsy, sellers and entrepreneurs that shied away from e-commerce are now able to overcome trust barriers and engage more deeply with the digital economy,” said Sikaria.

Shopsy recently launched a campaign that  takes a departure from conventional e-commerce focus on end consumers. It tries to attract key opinion leader or an 'influencer' who is often consulted by their near and dear ones on recommendations on what to buy. Leveraging their local network, Shopsy influencers are able to share catalogues of a wide selection of 150 million products offered by over 250,000 sellers through social media and communication apps. Providing access to its catalogue and full stack e-commerce services over simplified social media interface, Flipkart said it believes it can democratize commerce and can disrupt the emerging social commerce landscape.

E-commerce—powered by cheap data, supply-side innovations, and digitally savvy customers—has become a $30 billion industry in India in the fiscal year 2020. More than 100 million of India’s estimated 572 million Internet users purchase products online.

And the next frontier is social, according to a report titled ‘The Future of Commerce in India – the rise of social commerce’ by Bain & Company in partnership with Sequoia India.

The report expects that social commerce, which is a $1.5 billion to $2 billion market today, will be worth as much as $20 billion in just five years—and will likely hit nearly $70 billion by 2030. In short, India’s social commerce sector will be twice the size of the current e-commerce market within 10 years.

In social commerce, Flipkart is competing with players such as SoftBank-backed Meesho, DealShare, BulBul, GlowRoad, Mall91, and simsim.