Indian FMCG companies struggling with a shortage of salesmen amid growing gig economy

Indian FMCG companies are grappling with a shortage of salesmen. Companies selling daily essentials are finding recruiting the famed ‘feet on the street’ difficult in the face of intimidating sales targets amid a slowdown and more attractive gig workforce opportunities, executives said.

This comes at a time when companies are looking to hire incremental sales force and direct distribution roles to penetrate newer tier-2 and tier-3 markets and the hinterland in expectation of demand recovery in the new fiscal.

“It is progressively getting harder to find salesmen across FMCG. These are hard jobs, you’ve to pound the pavement and get the sales, when eight months of the year it's extremely hot or the weather is harsh,” said Dinkar Ayilavarapu, head of Flipkart Wholesale, the B2B marketplace owned by the Flipkart Group.

“We’re finding this to be a big challenge, as these executives with average mid-rung salaries of ₹32,000-40,000 per month, are preferring other office jobs like sorting, mailroom, security officers, inventory and storage management, call centres, other support staff, or driving their own taxis,” he added.

Executives pointed to the dual challenge of high attrition in sales and the emergence of newer job options, especially in the gig workforce with skill sets that are funnelling younger workers into delivery, logistics, dark stores and warehousing. “There are challenges of attrition in traditional salesforce roles, perhaps the highest among all functions, but there is no option,” said Mayank Shah, VP at