ITC Buys Into Ecommerce, To Launch Premium FMCG Products On Its New E-Store

A Kolkata-headquartered multi-business conglomerate, ITC Limited, is reportedly planning to onboard premium products into its recently launched ecommerce website, itcstore.in, as it seeks to expand its market share in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) segment of India.

“ITC plans to sell premium and niche FMCG products to discerning consumers through the e-store,” ET reported, citing ITC executive director B Sumant.

The conglomerate recently forayed into ecommerce where it is currently piloting to sell Fabelle chocolate products. It now intends to bring online the Aashirvaad products ranging from flour, salt, rice, etc.

It initially plans on selling these products online to consumers based in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata, and depending upon the success, it will expand on scaling it up to other cities.

Meanwhile, ITC will continue selling its products through trade partners on ecommerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers, BigBasket.

It also runs direct ecommerce operations for its lifestyle apparel business, WLS and John Players. Its online store for Classmate notebooks and other stationery products is already operational for consumers in Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. The company is further planning to expand into health food products in the next few quarters.

FMCG sales in India has tripled over the last two years, a recent report by Nielsen suggests. Large ecommerce companies such as Amazon, Grofers, BigBasket, Paytm Mall has already been tapping the segment bringing various FMCG products to their online website.

Grofers, for instance, witnessed its gross sales at INR 1,000 Cr in FY 18 and is looking to hit a billion dollar by end of this fiscal. BigBasket, on the other hand, reported a 34% hike in its revenues for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, reaching INR 1,606 Cr ($ 230.95 Mn), as against INR 1,197 Cr ($172.14 Mn) in the previous year.

ITC Ltd reported a 15 per cent jump in Q3 FY19 over the corresponding quarter last fiscal, with sales mainly driven by FMCG-Others, Agri-Business and Paperboards, Paper and Packaging products

It generated a net profit of INR 3,209 Cr ($450.5 Mn) for the third quarter of FY19, with gross revenues of INR 11,340 Cr ($1.5 Bn), as against net profit of INR 3,090 Cr ($433.8 Mn) with gross revenues of INR 9,852 Cr ($1.3 Bn) during Q3 in FY18.

[The development was reported by ET.]