Future Group, which houses the country’s largest retailer Pantaloon, will announce the launch of its new e-commerce initiative tomorrow. “We launched our e-commerce venture three-four years ago, but we did not discover the right model. We are relaunching the venture again,” Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said at the India Retail Forum here.
“In next four-five years, I believe e-commerce will be account for at least 10 per cent of our physical retailing,” Biyani said.
An executive said the group also planned to launch a mobile commerce platform and a television shopping channel, too. “It will be one of the biggest initiatives by Biyani,” he said. Though the group will focus on electronic and general merchandise initially, it will bring everything that can be sold through e-commerce on its online platform, he added. The group is also setting up supply chains for the e-commerce venture, said another executive in the know.
Distribution centres for fresh produce
Future Group will also set up a dozen fresh produce and consumer goods distribution centres (DCs) in the country as part of an integrated food strategy. The group, which operates over 1,000 stores, recently created a new fresh produce managing unit and bought mills and processing centres as part of backward integration. It plans to invest Rs 120 crore in setting up these centres.
Each distribution centre will be spread over 100,000 sq ft and include a cold storage facility of 15,000-20,000 sq ft, according to Future Supply Chain Solutions CEO Anshuman Singh. The cold chains will also cater to the needs of other retailers, Singh added. The centres will come up in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Chennai, among others, he said.
The group is also setting up a GST (goods and services tax)-compliant supply chain network to cater to the needs of retailers after the GST regime sets in. The network will include 12 million sq ft of built-to-suit warehousing space in nine big cities, Singh said. “We want to invest Rs 100 crore on warehousing facilities every year and plan to set up a $1-billion company in the next few years,” he said.
