Amazon and Flipkart are playing a key role to support these firms revive their business. These e-commerce majors are bringing them online, handholding them to pivot and helping them find fresh opportunities in the market. Amazon and Flipkart are also supporting them through various initiatives ranging from working capital to coronavirus related health insurance.
E-commerce firm Amazon is looking to help its small and midsize logistics partners, which are impacted due to the Covid-19 lockdown, financially through a new Partner Support Fund. The company will provide one-time disbursement to package delivery businesses known as Delivery Service Partners and ‘select’ transportation partners associated with Amazon. This will “enable them to provide financial aid to close to 40,000 of their staff for the month of April,” Amazon said. The fund will also help these SMEs in their “critical fixed infrastructure costs, and support liquidity and cash flow,” as they resume business post lockdown. The size of the fund and disbursement limit to each beneficiary partner has not been disclosed by the company.
Flipkart said the impact of the pandemic has urged businesses across the country to rethink their usual mode of operating and identify newer ways to function. One of the sellers is Sanjib Prasad who runs Kartbin Online Service Pvt. Ltd. on Flipkart. The firm sold a variety of products across categories such as shampoos, fragrances and its own line of t-shirts. Due to the lockdown restrictions, his business suffered and the orders on his platform got reduced from 1500-1700 per day to 300-350. But catering to the demand for hand sanitisers allowed Prasad to sustain his business. He managed 30-40 per cent of the business by selling sanitisers on Flipkart. This supported him to provide salaries for his 20-member team. “We recently started selling masks and that is now helping us increase our revenue,” said Prasad.
To capitalise on the market demand in the post-lockdown period, he focused on his online business. Flipkart supported him for in-depth proactive planning and coordination efforts. As soon as the lockdown was lifted, he was not only was he able to start selling online immediately but was also able to meet 3x demand. His sales increased from 450 units a day to 1,200 units a day post lockdown.
