Future Group starts listing brands, products on Amazon; US e-commerce major may buy stake in Future Coupons

Kishore Biyani-led Future Group has reportedly started listing its brands and products across various segments on US e-commerce major Amazon, a media report said. According to The Economic Times, Future Group’s Big Bazaar will be one of the preferred sellers on Amazon Now.  “As part of our larger distribution strategy for our products and brands, we are working with various partners including Amazon,” Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The report also added that Amazon is in talks to buy a stake in Future Coupons, a firm owned by Biyani. Meanwhile, Business Today reported that the much-awaited Amazon-Future group deal has fallen through. In February, it was reported that Amazon had indefinitely put on hold its plans to buy a stake in Biyani’s Future Group. According to the revised guidelines for e-commerce companies having FDI, a vendor cannot procure more than 25 percent of products from group companies of the same marketplace where they intend to sell them. [caption id=“attachment_4234435” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] In January, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had clarified that the FDI rules pertaining to e-commerce did not allow foreign investment in the inventory-based model or multi-brand retailing, reported PTI. It had stressed that the provisions are also not against the interest of consumers, noting that only fair, competitive and transparent business practices would be beneficial for buyers. Amazon, on its part, has been aggressively investing in the Indian market across its e-commerce, payment and logistics operations. It had committed $5 billion to the Indian operations and a large part of that has already been pumped in. Amazon and Flipkart are locked in a battle to dominate an Indian e-commerce market tipped, within a decade, to be worth $200 billion annually, according to Morgan Stanley. Amazon, which already has over 100 million registered users in India, is making a deeper push in the country’s small towns and cities in a bid to attract another 100 million customers by investing in infrastructure and partnering with local players for quicker deliveries. With PTI inputs