Flipkart to discontinue 'Smart Fulfilment' seller service

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
May 11, 2022

E-commerce giant Flipkart will discontinue its ‘Smart Fulfilment’ seller service which enables sellers to have their own warehouses essentially verified by Flipkart. The business made the decision to cut costs. 

“In order to help you in reducing your cost of doing business and improving your order processing experience, we are discontinuing Smart Fulfilment,” read the note Flipkart sent to its sellers using the service, reviewed by the Economic Times. 
 
Flipkart’s Smart Fulfilment service enabled participating sellers to allocate a dedicated space for their goods at their own warehouse or business space and have these areas linked into Flipkart’s logistics systems which cuts down on delivery times. In order to participate, businesses have to maintain their premises to Flipkart’s standards and, in return, their products are marked as “F-Assured’ on Flipkart’s e-commerce store. 

Following the shutdown of Smart Fulfilment, sellers will be able to store their products at Flipkart’s own warehouses or manage their own logistics independently, ET Tech reported. For sellers choosing to store their goods in Flipkart’s own warehouses, in which they will have to rent space, their products will be marked with ‘F-Plus’.
 
“After discussions with our sellers, we have found that Smart Fulfilment is leading to additional cost for sellers due to dedicated manpower, additional rented space, and third-party software to cut short the operational challenges,” wrote Flipkart in its note.