Seller Study on Financing Solutions for an E-commerce Marketplace

Flipkart launched seller financing program in mid-2015 to help sellers grow fast, eventually boosting sales of the online marketplace. Flipkart negotiate with banks and other financial services firms to get favorable terms for their third-party merchants and connect high-performing and fast-growing sellers on its platform to financial institutions to help these small businesses get capital to grow their businesses.

More than 2 years into the programme, Flipkart wanted to conduct a research to understand the finance availing behavior, satisfaction levels & future loan preference of sellers.   

Approach

A holistic approach was charted out for the research as follows:

• Minimum revenue capping on Flipkart in order to choose right sellers for the survey
• Segmenting the sellers based on categories of products sold
• Segmenting the sellers based on value of loan availed

Outcome

The research provided relevant insights around:

• Occasions of availing credit assistance
• Type of loan product availed – amount, tenure, interest rate, collateral-based etc.
• Choice of channel & player from whom loan availed
• Perception, past loan history & preference for Flipkart Finance
• Modelling the ideal loan product for various categories of sellers