Big Billion Days sale: Flipkart to charge sellers a ‘fee’ for not participating in Big Billion Days sale

Ecommerce giant Flipkart has told sellers that there will be a nominal fee of Rs 5 for orders received during the festive period, which can be waived off for sellers participating in the sale.

“Ahead of the Big Billion Days, Flipkart Marketplace has taken up a few initiatives to help sellers maximize their growth and profits. For this we are charging a nominal one-time fee (Rs 5/-) to all sellers for the festive period. The fee could be waived off for all sellers who fulfill certain objective criteria.”

The communication sent to some sellers, which ET has seen, states that ‘non-participating sellers’ will be charged a ‘ BBD premium fee’ of Rs 5 only on orders received during the ‘Early BBD sale’ that will be held from September 10 to September 21 this year followed by the flagship BBD sale. The fee will be waived off for sellers participating in the sale offers, the mail sent on Wednesday said.

The company clarified this would be a “one-time fee”, though several sellers have said the communication to them from Flipkart’s team was that it would be charged per order.

Though a nominal amount, the fee has enraged many sellers who have called out Flipkart for ‘threatening’ them to participate in the sale event and offer discounts.

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“Many sellers don’t wish to participate in the sale event because we don’t want to offer discounts and incur losses especially since we saw a slump in sales over the past few months. This is a new tactic by Flipkart of forcing sellers to participate,” an online merchant said, requesting anonymity.

Another seller said that many merchants will simply respond by hiking the prices of products by Rs 5 to compensate.

ET reported on Thursday that the
Walmart-owned company is expected to kickstart its flagship Big Billion Days on September 24 while Amazon will likely follow suit around the same time.

Merchants have already been struggling with a slump in sales on e-commerce platforms over the last few months while margins have also shrunk. ET Prime had earlier reported that
both Flipkart and Amazon had increased fees for sellers across multiple categories while also revising the zero-commission policy for many sellers.

Flipkart and Amazon are facing an investigation by the Competition Commission of India over alleged anti-trust practices including deep discounting on the platform, with the competition watchdog seeking information from both companies on who decides on sale events and the discounts.