Future Group’s Kishore Biyani ventures into the online world cautiously

Future Group’s Kishore Biyani is looking at more online acquisitions. He recently acquired online furniture seller Fabfurnish, his first online acquisition. Yet, he is not sure how much the e-commerce can contribute to his business.

With online retail Biyani is being cautious. Even though he has experimented with the medium since the start of this decade, he is not confident how the online acquisitions can help his business to grow. At the same time, he is not going to stop buying online ventures but he is clear that he will buy only those sites that need help. As he reiterates that he will go in only if there is money to be made.

The expansion of the bigbazaardirect has been put on hold as the venture continues to lose money. It was introduced on a franchisee model and armed sales executives with tablets to secure orders at doorsteps for home delivery. At the time of launching it, Biyani was confident that the model had the potential to be bigger than Big Bazaar. But of course, that didn’t happen.

However, he is confident about Fabfurnish becoming profitable in the next three-four months. Biyani believes that if he does a business of Rs 5 crore per month only from online, he will make profits. He is relaunching the online furniture marketplace later this month with offerings from Future Group’s own retail furniture chain, Home Town.