Bengaluru-based e-commerce giant Flipkart announced its decision to shut down its seller services called SMART Fulfilment, effective from August 1, 2022.
Under SMART Fulfilment, sellers were required to store their products in a separate space within their warehouses to make them eligible for faster deliveries, and to maintain the warehouses according to Flipkart’s guidelines.
The sellers could only include a set number of listings, and in those listings, the orders had to be fulfilled on priority, with same-day pickups being mandatory. These products are listed with the ‘F-Assured’ tag.
While the service gets more orders to a seller since it is delivered earlier, it also costs more to the seller, as Flipkart charged extra commissions on all SMART Fulfilment orders.
Further, seller’s in-house costs also increase, as SMART Fulfilment sellers had to have the warehouse open for pickup seven days of the week, along with having to use third-party software to keep up with the requirements.
Launched in December 2019, Flipkart’s SMART Fulfilment has service a life cycle of barely three years.
In an email sent to the sellers by Flipkart on the same, on May 3, the e-commerce giant said, “To help you in reducing your cost of doing business and improving your order processing experience, we are discontinuing SMART Fulfilment.”
Rationally explaining the reason behind the discontinuation of the service, the e-commerce giant explained that SMART Fulfilment was leading to additional costs for sellers due to various reasons such as increased manpower, additional rented space, and dependency on third-party software to reduce operational challenges.
While SMART Fulfilment is being discontinued, the F-Assured tag will still be featured on the listings of the sellers that continue to fulfill the conditions set by Flipkart.
These requirements, which include thresholds related to working hours and other service level agreement (SLA) requirements, were also shared in the same email.
