India's largest online marketplace has deployed spies to keep tabs on the merchandise being pushed by sellers.
Stung many times, Flipkart finally wakes up
Flipkart, which kicked off its five-day discount sale on Tuesday, is taking precautions after getting stung by instances of sellers listing counterfeit and sub-standard products and inflating the maximum retail price. It has rolled out an initiative to enroll employees as mystery shoppers — those paid to masquerade as customers — to buy products from sellers listed on the platform and report on the experience. The online marketplace has also hired one of the big four consultancy firms.
Flipkart mystery shopping programme
"With rising customer concerns around fake and counterfeit products online, we have rolled out the Flipkart mystery shopping programme where employees can act as Flipkart secret agents to identify fraudulent sellers on our platform. This initiative aims to ensure optimum quality, uniformity and fidelity of all the packages delivered to customers," said Manish Maheshwari, head and vice-president, seller ecosystem, at Flipkart.
Incentives for Flipkart's 'secret agents'
Employees who sign up for this voluntary effort, which will continue after the festive season, will get special incentives. "Those members of the staff who enroll for this programme will get Flipkart shopping vouchers," he added. Flipkart's 'secret agents' will have to send in photos of the packaging, labels and products that are delivered to them, which will be processed by the trust and security team. If the quality of the product, service and packaging is substandard, action will be taken against the seller, ranging from being recommended for mandatory training programmes to being delisted in extreme cases.
(Originally published in the Times of India)
