Future Group Gives Ecommerce Another Shot, Takes Brand Factory Online

Kishore Biyani-led, Future Group will reportedly launch a website for its fashion retail discount chain Brand Factory in February 2019.

According to reports, Kishore Biyani had said that brandfactory.in would be the biggest launch for the company. This will be the company’s second attempt to enter the ecommerce space.

In 2017 Future Group had to shut down the operations of its online furniture store, FabFurnish, which it had acquired from a Germany-based internet company Rocket Internet.

Due to heavy losses, the group was forced to close Fabfurninsh. However, Biyani said that the losses were “compensated” as they learnt from the experience.

Future Retail is currently in advanced talks with US ecommerce company Amazon to sell a 9.5% stake in the company.

Biyani along with his family owns 46.51% stake in Future Retail which operates brands such as  BigBazaar, EasyDay, and Niligiris. The group has been seeking to enter into an alliance with the Amazon since January after Biyani met founder Jeff Bezos at his Seattle headquarters.

Currently, the company has a total retail space of 13.6 Mn sq ft through 1,030 stores which are present across 255 cities.

The group has also said to be keen on Amazon’s business tactics as the group has reportedly launched its grocery delivery app to strengthen its presence in the market.  

The company has clocked in a revenue of $2.6 Bn (INR 18,478 Cr), according to its annual report 2017-18.

[The development was reported by ET]