Under the Vriddhi Supplier Development Programme titled Walmart Vriddhi, the US retail giant aims to train and prepare 50,000 Indian small businesses to “Make in India” for global supply chains. The company aims to create 25 such hubs across the country although it has not zeroed in on the locations or the sectors it plans to develop.
The move by the US retail giant, which operates a wholesale business in India and owns ecommerce company Flipkart, comes at a time when the top foreign retail players are in the firing line of criticism from local small and medium units and are keen to showcase their efforts to link MSME entities into the global marketplace. Rival Amazon, too, unveiled on Monday a programme for MSMEs to conduct various activities, including a series of awareness workshops, roadshows, and ecommerce training at pre-identified industrial clusters.
“The Vriddhi programme will encourage Indian suppliers to make for online and offline customers around the world, including — but not limited to — the supply chains of Flipkart and Walmart. That openness makes us unique and can truly create opportunities for those who participate. Whether a supplier has ambitions domestically or around the globe, Walmart Vriddhi will give them the tools they need to succeed,” said Judith McKenna, president and CEO of Walmart International.
TOI on Monday reported that the government, too, is planning fee-based arrangements with marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart for pushing goods produced by MSMEs. Apart from helping them fetch more orders from both consumers and other businesses, this will help these enterprises make a smooth transition into India’s booming ecommerce space.
Reacting to TOI’s article, traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said it has written to union minister for MSME Nitin Gadkari and has raised strong objections on such a move and said that both Amazon and Flipkart are killing the domestic trade and why the government is joining hands with them to kill the traders of the country.
Alleging predatory pricing and deep discounting by both Amazon and Flipkart, it offered to support the creation of an independent portal for digitalising not only MSMEs but even seven crore traders with integration of digital payments and logistics and having no element of commission on sales of products. “Amazon and Flipkart are charging commission from 8% to 30% on sale of various products on their portals beside violating FDI policy,” CAIT said in a statement.
