Mumbai: On Friday evening, Future Group’s fashion brand FBB, part of Future Retail Ltd, held a first-of-its-kind “watch now buy now” online fashion show on video-streaming platform Hotstar and social network Facebook. Consumers could buy online on the two platforms during the streaming of the show.
Over 42,000 people logged in to watch the online fashion show.
For India’s largest listed retail group, this is the latest attempt to catch the attention of the online consumer after several failed tries, including partnering with Amazon and even attempting to go online by itself.
Currently online accounts for 0.1% of overall sales, says Future Retail’s joint managing director Rakesh Biyani. However, the long-term target is to get at least 10% of sales from online, he added, without specifying a time frame.
Online is already an important part of Indian retail. In March, Swedish fast-fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz AB announced the launch of online operations in India after Zara (part of the Inditex group) which had launched its online store in October. Moreover, online retailers such as Myntra and Jabong, owned by Flipkart, continue to grow at breakneck speed.
According to a March 2017 report by management consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group and Facebook, titled Fashion Forward 2020, digital influence already accounts for more than 10% of the $70 billion Indian fashion market. This influence is expected to multiply nearly four times to reach about $30 billion by 2020, a staggering number which will constitute 60-70% of the total branded apparel market, said the report.
To be sure, digitally influenced purchases at the Future Group are much higher, at 7-8% of total sales. In categories like electronics, it’s much higher.
In November, the company had unveiled an ambitious Retail 3.0 digital strategy aimed at making the group Asia’s largest leading integrated consumer company with a trillion dollars in revenue by 2047.
As such, the retailer has been piloting its omni-channel strategy, allowing consumers to click and shop online or on a mobile app as well as in-store seamlessly in Mumbai for the last 5-6 months.
“In the next 6-8 weeks, we should have close to 90% of our stores online, allowing consumers to buy online or even place an order online and collect at our stores,” said Biyani.
Future Group is the parent of four listed retail entities—Future Retail, Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd, Future Consumer Ltd and Future Enterprises Ltd—which together have a combined revenue of $4.4 billion, according to a November presentation.