Retail giant Future group is launching Big Bazaar Direct, a direct selling platform for which it will use a tablet based e-commerce backend.
According to Big Bazaar’s newly launched site for Direct, the retailer will offer nearly 1000 deals on a tablet interface to the franchises from which customers can choose items. An order confirmation is sent on SMS to the buyers mobile after which the buyer makes a payment to the franchise. The company is promising 3-7 days delivery.
Big Bazaar will fulfill the orders while franchisees will earn a cut from each order. The franchisees will have to make a Rs 3 lakh investment to get the shop running.
Big Bazaar Direct is already live and is signing up franchises from around the country.
The company will set up nearly 100,000 franchises in the next 2 years. (source)
The group, struggling to bring nearly Rs 8,000 cr of debt under control has not been very successful with its pure play e-commerce venture Futurebazaar.
With this, it appears that the company wants to target people who are not buying online.
The company, which has been selling off assets in the last year or so, will raise a lot of money from franchises if people buy into the idea. Future group will take a Rs 1 lakh non interest bearing refundable security deposit, Rs 1 lakh to setup the infrastructure and Rs 1 lakh as advance for the orders to be placed.
In the groceries and perishables segment, there are e-commerce players such as BigBasket and Zopnow. These companies promise delivery within a few hours and the Future group will have to compete with them if they are targeting the online buyers. However, with 1 lakh franchise stores, Biyani is more likely to be competing with the Kirana shop next door for a share of business from people who aren’t buying online. Now that, will be a tougher challenge.
What are your thoughts?
Hat tip: Naman
