Flipkart Wholesale, the business-to-business arm of the Walmart-owned ecommerce giant, has launched operations starting with the fashion segment focussing on footwear and apparel.

The company said it aims to onboard 50 brands and over 250 local manufacturers in the first phase, across Gurugram, Delhi, and Bengaluru.

This comes weeks after Flipkart‘s wholesale unit acquired Walmart India’s loss-ridden cash-and-carry business that owns the Best Price brand, consolidating Walmart’s entire retail portfolio under the Flipkart Group.

Flipkart Wholesale will compete with other deep-pocketed players like JioMart, Udaan, Metro Cash & Carry, and Amazon’s B2B division.

The online retailer’s wholesale unit plans to use insights from its parent’s business-to-consumer segment. “Because of all the data that we have on customers on Flipkart and Myntra, we understand what customers are buying specific to the catchment in which the kirana is located. So if you are a kirana in Koramangala in Bengaluru or in Patel Nagar in Delhi, Flipkart Wholesale will serve you a curated assortment based on what customers in the same catchment are shopping and browsing for,” Adarsh Menon, Senior Vice-President and Head of Flipkart Wholesale, told ET.

Menon added that historically the assortment that these shops get offered is largely pushed from manufacturers and distributors, and not based on data-led insights. “Smart selection is a very big proposition from our end,” he said.

By the end of this year, Flipkart Wholesale also plans to expand to 20 more cities including Mumbai and across categories such as home & kitchen and grocery, Menon told ET.

Flipkart Wholesale customers will also have access to credit facilities, order returns, and speedy delivery with tracking facilities. Logistics will be taken care of by the company’s own unit Ekart.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the willingness of small businesses to use technology to scale operations, opening up a market that had in the past viewed technology companies as a competitor. According to a report by Redseer Consulting, three out of four of these mom-and-pop stores have no exposure to technology platforms for any service including payments or procurement.