Future Retail finally goes the ecommerce way through Paytm tie up

This tie up will make Big Bazaar the anchor store for the Paytm marketplace.

Retail company Future Group on Thursday announced its tie up with digital payment wallet Paytm. The partnership will enable shoppers of Big Bazaar to buy their products on the Paytm platform and het it delivered to their homes.

This will make Big Bazaar the anchor store for the Paytm marketplace. Apart from this, Big Bazaar customers who use Paytm can get a 15% cashback on all purchases, both online and offline, using the Paytm wallet.

"The unit economics of e-commerce has been the key bane for understanding the business, making a partnership the most viable format to take Big Bazaar online," Kishore Biyani, Group CEO of Future Group told PTI.

"In the last two years, we have been serious in understanding this business and how to engage with it... One has to make this business happen," he added.

"The cost of acquiring a customer (in e-commerce) is more than 20%, cost of fulfilment is more than 20%, cost of running the operation is 8-10% totalling almost 50% as cost of operation. At this cost, you can't sell any goods in this medium," he said.

Big Bazaar is also targeting a Rs 1,000 crore sales during the Maha Bachat sale between August 13-17 this year and will be encouraged by the online partnership, Biyani said.

"Together (with Future Group), we see a fantastic opportunity to create a mobile first, omni-channel retail and payment solution for our wide consumer base," Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm said.

"In addition to shopping for Big Bazaar merchandise on Paytm, users can also pay using the Paytm wallet in any of the Future Group retail outlets," he added.

Future Group operates a range of popular stores, such as Big Bazaar, FBB, Foodhall, Central, Brand Factory, Ezone and EasyDay.

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