WS Retail may lose supremacy on Flipkart

India’s leading marketplace Flipkart has over one lakh sellers on its platform and WS Retail is one of them. WS Retail, Flipkart’s largest vendor, posted a 33 per cent increase in sales for the year ended March 2016. However, now Flipkart has to reduce its dependence on WS Retail. As according to Indian laws, a single vendor cannot account for more than a fourth of the sales of an online marketplace with foreign investment. However Flipkart has to reduce its dependence on WS Retail. According to Indian laws, a single vendor cannot account for more than a fourth of the sales of an online marketplace with foreign investment.

Seven years old WS Retail accounts for nearly 90 per cent of goods sold on Flipkart. WS Retail’s revenue is more than the combined sales of top brick-and-mortar retailers such as Shoppers Stop, Future Lifestyle, Tata’s Trent and Aditya Birla Group’s Pantaloons. In the past two years, Flipkart has been shifting away from an inventory-led model to a marketplace, which allows over one lakh sellers to compete on the portal in nearly 80 categories. WS Retail’s sales are likely to decline substantially in the current fiscal as Flipkart seeks other vendors to source exclusive and high-value products. As it is high value and volume-generating categories like smart phones, televisions, appliances, apparel, watches and shoes are now handled by different sellers. New sellers have entered into deals for sourcing products that will be sold through Flipkart.