SUMMARY
Within 100 days of its launch, Flipkart’s social commerce venture Shopsy claims to have amassed over 2.5 Lakh sellers, 51 Lakh users
“Flipkart is eyeing different cohorts of consumers — trying to solve their needs more deeply. Thus, in the next 3-6 months, we will see a lot more continued focus on grocery shopping, with Shopsy participating in it, more meaningfully,” the company spokesperson said
India's grocery market size at $850 Bn in 2025, while e-groceries could account for 3% of the market – amounting to a little over $25 Bn in market value
Within 100 days of its launch, Flipkart’s social commerce venture Shopsy claims to have amassed over 2.5 Lakh sellers, 51 Lakh users and a catalogue of over 150 Mn products.
Walmart-owned ecommerce marketplace Flipkart had launched Shopsy in July this year intending to capture a larger share of shoppers on the internet.
According to the company, during Flipkart’s festive season sale alone, Shopsy witnessed 35x growth of the pre-festive daily average. With a 100x growth week-on-week on its social commerce model, which provides assisted shopping, while charging commission from advertisements and sellers working through its platform, the company is eyeing a larger share in the grocery ecosystem.
In an interaction with Inc42, Prakash Sikaria, senior VP – growth & monetisation at Flipkart, said, “Flipkart is eyeing different cohorts of consumers — trying to solve their needs more deeply. Thus, in the next 3-6 months, we will see a lot more continued focus on grocery shopping, with Shopsy participating in it, more meaningfully.”
“There are many supply chain models within Flipkart such as community buying on whether it is ecommerce or Shopsy, and our focus would be scaling hyperlocal grocery because we have doubled down on a lot of these initiatives. You will see a lot of continued growth coming in the quarter, and the coming months,” Sikaria concluded.
A RedSeer report from 2021 pegged India’s grocery market size at $850 Bn in 2025, while e-groceries could account for 3% of the market – amounting to a little over $25 Bn in market value. According to Statista, in the e-groceries market, the predominant platforms include BigBasket (35%), Amazon Pantry/Fresh (31%), Grofers (31%), and JioMart, Meesho’s Farmiso, Flipkart among others (12%).
Not only that, Flipkart’s share of e-groceries in its total GMV is less than 3%.
According to an IBEF report, the last-mile delivery market in India is expected to reach $6 Bn – $7 Bn by 2024. The ecosystem faces stiff competition from Dunzo, Tata-owned BigBasket, Grofers, Dunzo and Swiggy’s Instamart who are offering to deliver essentials in less than 30 minutes.
Flipkart claims to have partnered with 1.5 Lakh stores across the country to deliver essentials in 90 minutes, with its hyperlocal platform Flipkart Quick.
The social commerce segment in India is a fast-growing sector, with companies like Meesho, YouTube-acquired SimSim, GlowRoad, Trell who recently acquired Womaniya, DealShare who recently raised $144 Mn in Series D from Tiger Global, Elevation Capital-backed CityMall and Bulbul getting attention from both customers and investors. Expected to reach a $60 Bn – $70 Bn valuation in 2030, the market is currently pegged at $1.5 Bn – $2 Bn gross market value (GMV).
With a $3.5 Bn Warchest, Flipkart Wants It All
Flipkart has also ventured into the direct-to-customer (D2C) segment with a service-fee based programme to nurture and help scale 100 Make-in-India D2C brands.
The D2C segment, on the other hand, has accounted for over 800 D2C brands by April 2021 in the country, according to an Inc42 Plus report, with 50K+ digital-first brands and 15 Mn+ active online sellers, the stage is set for the next phase in the D2C revolution.
The market which is expected to touch the $100 Bn mark by 2026 has witnessed the rise of several models looking to capture the space. Supam Maheshwari’s FirstCry’s Global Bees, Ananth Narayanan’s Mensa Brands, Rishi Vasudev’s GOAT Brand Labs, Utsav Agarwal & Pulkir Chhabra’s Evenflow, Bhavana Suresh’s 10Club, Presight Capital-backed Upscalio, and FJ Labs-backed Powerhouse91, scooping the market with Thrasio-styled models.
To bank on the D2C wave, Flipkart had launched its Boost program aimed at helping 100 Make-in-India D2C brands.
The move is similar to Amazon India launching the company’s Global Selling Propel (AGSP) Accelerator to provide mentorship to SMEs and startups, aiming to expand geographically.
