Customers who have so far been swearing by Big Bazaar to buy their groceries, fashion, footwear, and other items would now be able to get it online. Kishore Biyani-led Future Group companies Future Retail — the retail arm and Future Consumer — the FMCG vertical have tied up with Amazon India. This would enable Future Retail to sell goods including groceries, general merchandise, beauty products, fashion, footwear, jewellery, watches, luggage across India. Similarly, Future Consumer brands including Tasty Treat for snacks, fabric care brand Voom, Dreamery for dairy, dry fruits label Karmiq, etc would be sold on Amazon. Big Bazaar products are also available as of now on Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Paytm Mall.
The deal with Future Group is likely to boost Amazon’s play in the Indian e-commerce market that is expected to grow to $188-billion in size by 2025 from $39 billion in 2017, according to Statista. Amazon and Flipkart are currently the largest online retailers in India with Snapdeal at a distant third even as it has shifted its focus to value-conscious buyers in India in 2017. “This creates an enviable collaboration bringing together the best of consumer insights and geographical reach from the online and offline world,” Amazon said in a statement. Future Group’s partnership with Amazon also comes probably months before the impending launch of Mukhesh Ambani’s Reliance into the e-commerce fray, thanks to Jio around 350 million customers and a network of nearly 11,000 retail stores. Reliance e-commerce foray is expected this year.
Market share (GMV) in Indian E-commerce
“Reliance’s retail stores are the largest in number in India and also they have a large number of foreign brands,” Satish Meena, senior forecast analyst at Forrester Research had told Financial Express Online. “Reliance is going to capture Indian household by not just spending on digital content but also on grocery, fashion, and electronics towards which majority household spending goes.”
Future Retail currently gets more than 350 million footfalls across its retail network. The company has more than 1,500 stores in over 400 cities. The products are currently available on Amazon from Future Retail’s 22 stores and will be listed on the Amazon Prime Now programme for within two-hour delivery in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad as of now. “This arrangement will allow us to build upon each other’s strengths in the physical and digital space so that customers benefit from the best services, products, assortment and price,” Kishore Biyani, Chairman & Managing Director, Future Retail Limited said in a statement. For Future Consumer, the arrangement with Amazon Retail India, which sells food products manufactured in India on Amazon India marketplace, is likely to provide a fresh fillip to Future Consumer’s growth plans and boost its existing share of sales that come from outside the Future Group network, the company said.