Future Retail & Amazon India agree to collaborate

The arrangement will build on the robust offline and online capabilities of both organisations creating significant value for customers, the companies said in a join press release.

FRL will leverage its existing infrastructure, strong product knowledge and extensive brand portfolio resulting in higher store productivity and improved margins. Currently FRL attracts over 350 million footfalls across its retail network, and Amazon India’s marketplace will enable FRL to reach a wider customer base. This collaboration will drive synergies through FRL’s well-entrenched consumer-centric national network and Amazon India’s tech enabled distribution footprint.

As part of the agreements, Amazon India will become the authorised online sales channel for FRL stores and FRL will ensure the participation of relevant FRL stores on the Amazon India marketplace, and its programmes. Customers will enjoy the convenience of ordering on physical and digital channels for a wide range of food, FMCG, fashion, footwear and homeware categories in a seamless manner. FRL will list on the Amazon Prime Now programme, allowing customers to get food, grocery and general merchandise delivery within two hours in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. FRL will soon list stores like Big Bazaar, and Foodhall in more cites on the Amazon India marketplace.

FRL and Amazon India signed two agreements focusing on key categories: 1) Grocery and general merchandise—focusing on groceries, general merchandise and beauty categories 2) Fashion and footwear—focusing on fashion and apparel, footwear, jewellery, watches, luggage, travel gear, eye wear, perfumes, and related accessories, and such other categories.

FRL will augment existing store-infrastructure at its retail outlets for facilitating seamless packaging and pickup of products ordered online. FRL and Amazon India have already launched this service across 22 stores and the results have been encouraging, wider scale up is already underway. Both companies plan on rolling this out across the entire FRL store chain based on agreed timelines.

“Amazon and Future Retail share common values of serving customers everywhere in the best possible manner,” said Kishore Biyani, chairman & managing director, Future Retail Limited. “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.”

“We are excited about the business collaboration with FRL. FRL’s national footprint of stores offering thousands of products across fashion, appliances, home, kitchen and grocery will now be available to millions of customers shopping on Amazon.in, in hours across 25+ cities,” said Amit Agarwal, SVP & country head, Amazon India.

These agreements will enhance choice and convenience for Amazon India’s customers and will help FRL engage with a broader set of customers seamlessly across channels. Both organisations will work towards driving sales, achieving operational efficiencies, collaborating on technical excellence, in relation to online sales. In order to drive efficiencies, the two organisations will work closely through a dedicated team, and will explore synergies in distribution, customer acquisition, and marketing initiatives. This creates an enviable collaboration bringing together the best of consumer insights and geographical reach from the online and offline world, the release said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)