Walmart’s Flipkart enters social commerce market in India with Shopsy

Flipkart, the Walmart-backed Indian ecommerce platform, is taking a shot at social commerce with the launch of Shopsy.

Shopsy is a new application that allows users to share catalogs of products from the platform with their contacts and place orders on their behalf through WhatsApp or Facebook.

Photo credit: Flipkart

These users, who effectively act as resellers, can earn commissions on the transactions, which will vary depending on the category of products being ordered. Flipkart says Shopsy will provide access to 150 million products through its sellers across categories, including beauty, mobile phones, and electronics.

Flipkart’s Shopsy is similar to Canada’s Shopify, which allows people to set up an online store and sell their products.

In India, Meesho is already a big player in the social commerce space. Earlier in April, the Facebook-backed firm raised US$300 million in a recent funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The fundraise valued Meesho at US$2.1 billion, elevating it to unicorn status.

Meesho says it has more than 100,000 registered suppliers, generating over US$68.1 million in income for entrepreneurs.

Flipkart says it aims to bring in over 25 million online entrepreneurs by 2023.

“Entrepreneurs now will utilize Flipkart’s catalog, established delivery networks, and infrastructure to bring reliability and speed. These benefits will help them enhance the end consumers’ experience, which in turn help them grow their business,” said Prakash Sikaria, senior vice president of growth and monetization at Flipkart.

According to a Bain & Company report, social commerce in India is estimated to reach up to US$20 billion by 2025 and up to US$70 billion by 2030. The study also predicts that the sector will bring in US$16 billion to US$20 billion in gross merchandise value in the next five years.