Flipkart’s largest seller WS Retail tripled its turnover in FY15

WS Retail, the largest seller on India's leading online marketplace Flipkart, almost tripled its turnover to Rs 10,163 crores in FY15 that is more than the combined sales of top offline retailers such as Shoppers Stop, Future Lifestyle, Tata's Trent and Aditya Birla Group's Pantaloons.

The six-year-old company, founded by Flipkart's founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, sells nearly 80 percent of its merchandise to Flipkart. Three years ago, the Bansals sold their stake to former OnMobile Global chief operating officer Rajeev Kuchhal along with a group of other investors. WS Retail reported a net profit of Rs 67 lakh on sales of Rs 3,135 crores for fiscal year 2014, which was higher than Flipkart India's revenue of Rs 2,846 crores for the same period. Another company, Flipkart Internet, which earns commission and advertising revenues from sellers, posted total sales of Rs 179 crores last year.

Flipkart decided to follow Alibaba.com’s model by keeping itself away from the largest supplier WS Retail by telling vendors to sell directly to the customers through its platform instead of WS Retail. The move happened, shortly after, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated an investigation into whether Flipkart, which has overseas funding, was indirectly involved in retailing products to consumers directly through WS Retail since the Indian government doesn't allow FDI in B2C e-commerce.