Online Retail Platform Flipkart Gears Up For GST, Creates To-Do List

In an attempt to comply with the newly passed GST bill, online marketplace Flipkart has reportedly brought changes in its organisation. These changes will be in accordance with the norms prescribed by the Government.

The company reportedly has made a to-do list to prepare itself for the GST era, before its expected rollout date of April 2017. The changes surrounding the bill are mainly operational and involve training across the network of sellers registered with the company.

Commenting on the development, a Flipkart spokesperson said, “Our priorities over the next few months are to make changes to our ERP systems, GST training across the seller ecosystems and internally within the organisation, and to engage with the government proactively during deliberations in the law-making process. We are quite confident of being ready well in time for the April 1 rollout.”

Under the GST regime, ecommerce companies will have to collect taxes at the source and collect and pay taxes on the behalf of their registered sellers on their respective platforms. Ecommerce startups will therefore have a hard time due to the lack of clarity regarding aggregators versus operators. Under the GST, operators have to pay tax while aggregators need not.

In another development, Flipkart also announced the launch of its new warehouse in Lucknow. It’s the second warehouse opened by the ecommerce giant in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Counting the new one, it will now have 18 Fulfillment Centres in the country. Earlier this month, it also hired 10,000 temporary employees to meet the demands of the upcoming festivities.

The new warehouse comes in line with Flipkart’s preparations to tackle its rivals Amazon India and Snapdeal this festive season. In July, Amazon also opened its largest Fulfilment Centre (FC) in Sonipat, near Delhi.  Snapdeal also launched its new brand identity “Unbox Zindagi” earlier this week where it unveiled a new logo.

This development was first reported in ET.

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