Flipkart social commerce biz Shopsy's revenue grew 4x on festive purchases

Shopsy, which competes with players such Meesho, DealShare, BulBul, GlowRoad, Mall91, and simsim is on track to enable over 25 million online entrepreneurs by 2023.

Flipkart’s social commerce platform Shopsy, said it continues to witness strong growth through its consumers, sellers and resellers from across the country. Backed by festive fervor, the platform has seen 3.6x growth in new app downloads, crossing the 10 million mark on the play store, within five months of its launch. Since July 2021, Flipkart said Shopsy has received an overwhelming response from consumers and resellers across the country who hopped onto the platform for their ‘shop & earn’ needs.

“With the (new) 200 million digital consumers coming from Tier 2 and 3 cities, we want to build a community that truly democratizes commerce in the country,” said Prakash Sikaria, Senior Vice President - Growth and Monetization, Flipkart. “The social commerce landscape in the country is evolving at a fast pace, and with Shopsy we are building a sustainable platform backed by our technology prowess.”

He said small businesses and sellers see immense benefit on what Shopsy as a platform has to offer them- ranging from zero commission to free shipping facilities. “We continue to ensure digital commerce reaches the length and breadth of our country and help make lives  better,” said Sikaria.

Shopsy clocked in 4X revenue growth during this festive period,  compared to the non-festive sale period, making it the top social commerce platform for consumers across the country. The platform's active user base grew 3.7X to what it was during the non-festive period. For Shopsy, categories including fashion, beauty, general merchandise and home (BGMH) led the growth story in October. In social commerce, Flipkart is competing with players such as SoftBank-backed Meesho, DealShare, BulBul, GlowRoad, Mall91, and simsim.

“With Shopsy our ability to reach a wider audience base has increased drastically, as we leverage the power of technology to drive up sales,” said Kumud Jindal - Samridhee Creations, a seller with Flipkart’s Shopsy from Jaipur. “The fact that Shopsy charges 0 per cent commission from sellers also adds to its charm.”

According to a recent Bain & Company report on ‘How India Shops Online - 2021’, social commerce is set to democratize e-retail, with three in five social shoppers coming from Tier 2 and smaller towns. Tapping into this opportunity, Shopsy has expanded its presence in new Tier 2 and 3 cities such as Bhatinda, Barpeta, Gandhinagar, Morena, Mandla, Muzaffarnagar, Raipur, Sri Ganganagar and Saharanpur during the festive period, unlocking the potential of digital commerce for under-served consumers.

Nabeel from Fastcolors, another successful seller on Shopsy from Chennai said, the hesitation of joining a new platform like Shopsy was washed away by the benefits that sellers get on listing their products.

“Especially during the festive season, things like 0% commission, getting the same settlement value for which we are selling to the customer, and the ease of uploading real-life pictures of our products really helped us establish transparency with our customers and boosted our sales. We are expecting even better growth with Shopsy in the future,” said Nabeel.

Shopsy was launched by Flipkart in July 2021 with the aim to make digital commerce accessible across India through a zero-commission marketplace to boost local entrepreneurship. Since then, Shopsy has helped local & small businesses and women entrepreneurs adopt social commerce by simply reaching out to their trusted network of people on common social media apps. Shopsy has over 2.5 lakh sellers on the platform who provide 150 million products across over 250 categories. Shopsy is on track to enable over 25 million online entrepreneurs by 2023.

The next frontier in e-commerce 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.