Flipkart, the country's homegrown e-commerce marketplace, on Wednesday launched its grocery services here with the opening of its first fulfillment center in the region to meet the growing demand for groceries online.
The facility also bolsters Flipkarts supply chain in the South and would create thousands of direct and indirect employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, a company release said.
Spread across over 1.2 lakh square feet, the newly built facility would generate direct employment for nearly 1,200 people while encouraging local entrepreneurship.
In the initial stages, only a part of the facility would be utilised for which over 500 people would be hired and this would be the only facility for Flipkart which would almost be entirely run by women constituting 90 per cent of the overall workforce.
To enable more women to join the workforce, Flipkart under its initiative Vividhta provides workplace policies that support women and their career progression. It has also set up a creche facility at the centre and would offer transportation and meals to all its employees to enable them to work effectively, the release said.
The new fulfilment centre would further augment Flipkarts capabilities to cater to more consumers, including millions of first-time e-commerce consumers from the southern region.
Flipkart has also introduced multiple language access for consumers to provide a native language experience. Interestingly, over 52 per cent of Flipkart consumers are from tier-II and beyond cities, a testament to the growing adoption of e-commerce services.
This would be Flipkarts second grocery facility in Tamil Nadu after Chennai and ninth in the South. This sustained growth in Flipkarts grocery business is also giving a boost to the local food processing industry supporting Indian agriculture and small and medium farmers, the release said.