Bucking industry caution, Flipkart on seasonal hiring spree for festive shopping fervour

Homegrown e-commerce major Flipkart is set to create over one lakh direct and indirect seasonal jobs across its supply chain, as the digital commerce player gears up for the festive season. It is also slated to host the tenth edition of its flagship sale ‘The Big Billion Days’ (TBBD) during the period.

“The complexity and scale during TBBD require us to scale up for capacity, storage, placement, sorting, packaging, human resources, training, delivery and the entire supply chain, and this scale is always unprecedented,” said Hemant Badri, Senior Vice president and Head of Supply Chain, Customer Experience, and ReCommerce, Flipkart Group.

This comes as a reassuring move as high inflationary pressures and weak monsoon rains this year cloud expectations for the festive season that kicked off with Onam last week. 

Elaborating on the combined impact of inflation and monsoon on consumption demand in India, Amnish Aggarwal, who heads research at stock broking firm Prabhudas Lilladhar, said: “Rural demand was recovering but broadly the urban and rural class, both have been under pressure.”

“This time retailers are quite conscious about over-stocking for the festive season,” said Anshul Gupta, founder of community platform Kirana Club, adding that they will take a call on preparations for festivals like Navratri and Diwali after observing sales during Onam, Raksha Bandhan and Ganesh Chaturthi.

However, others expressed an optimistic outlook on the prospects of e-commerce platforms. 

“Online is expected to drive a lot of the festive consumption with deal-based activities,” said Anand Ramanathan, who is a partner at audit and consulting firm Deloitte. In light of price discounts and promotional offers, many will prepone their purchases, he added.

E-commerce player Meesho and apparel brands such as Tokyo Talkies and Highlander are also expecting year-on-year growth in business as they fire on all cylinders for this festival season.