Kishore Biyani, founder and CEO of the Future Group and often referred to as India’s Retail King, has witnessed several changes in this sector even as technology-led new-age online retailers attempt to disrupt consumer buying behaviour. But Biyani has always been critical of pure online e-commerce, stressing on the need for an omni-channel presence. The Walmart-Flipkart deal presents a new challenge to players like Biyani. BusinessLine spoke to him over phone to get a sense of how he sees the competition from Walmart. Excerpts:
You have been one of the biggest critics of the e-commerce sector. Does the Walmart- Flipkart deal change your views?
We have been saying that the only way to do retail is offline to online or online to offline (O2O) or omni-channel. All over the world, O2O is converging and for any online player to succeed it has to align with modern physical retail and vice-versa. This deal is just an indication of that.
How does this deal impact big players like you?
It doesn’t impact us in any way. Why will it impact? Walmart has come as an financial investor and this doesn’t change the way Flipkart is running its business. I don’t see any change in the strategy.
Will this coerce you to plan an e-commerce venture?
No plans for e-commerce. We never believed in e-commerce and that is not an area we would like to get into.
But you said omni-channel is a strategy going forward. So how prepared are you with that?
We were one of the first companies to do omni-channel and we are doing quite well. About 80 per cent of our home deliveries are happening through the omni-channel route.
The RSS and others have opposed this deal. Are they voicing in the interest of Indian retailers or is it politically motivated?
Who am I to comment on that?