Reliance Retail to foray into e-commerce

After making a strong headway in physical retail with

positive growth records, Reliance Retail is now planning to enter the e-commerce space in the next six to eight months. In this space it will compete with existing players like eBay, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon among others.

As per sources, the work on creating the online platform has already begun and a technical team at Reliance Retail is working on the project. On the brick-and-mortar side, the Mukesh Ambani-owned company operates over 1,500 stores, including hypermarkets, digital stores, jewellery outlets and apparel stores, in 136 cities across India.

For the quarter ended September, Reliance Retail registered a sales rise of 31 percent to touch Rs 3,456 crores. Its profit before depreciation, interest and taxes stood at Rs 165 crores in the first half of the fiscal 2014.

Though no foreign direct investment is allowed in e-commerce so far, many foreign giants like eBay, Amazon have started operations in the country using the marketplace model. Efforts are also on to put pressure on the Indian government to ease FDI norms in the sector. The government last year allowed foreign supermarket operators to own up to 51 percent stake in local ventures.