Indian brick and mortar giant Future Group recently announced that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Amazon India to sell its private labels, reports Business Standard.

While it will start with the fashion category, the partnership will eventually be extended to all other categories. Moreover, Amazon India will also assist Future Group in accelerating new product development in categories that are currently not served by traditional retailers.  

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, who was recently on a visit to India, had met Future Group’s Kishore Biyani personally.

Future group will use the Amazon platform to sell its private labels like Lee Cooper, Converse, Indigo Nation, Scullers or Jealous21, among others. The company has a portfolio of over 40 brands. 

“The bottom line in each of our retail success stories is ‘know your customer’. … Partnership with Amazon, which obsesses to be earth’s most customer centric company, will enable us to leverage their strengths, investments, and innovations in technology to reach out to wider set of consumers across India,” Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said in a statement.

Last week Biyani had criticised Flipkart and other e-commerce companies for the deep discounts offered during Diwali sale, which he said will adversely affect other retail channels. 

Amazon did not follow the flash sale/discount policy of Flipkart and Snapdeal and went easy when it came to offering discounts during its Diwali sale. 

Commenting on the reason for the tie up when the company has its own omni-channel strategy, Biyani was quoted in Business Standard as saying, "The endeavour with external e-commerce platforms is to have exclusive tie-ups with them to push our brands."

 According to the report, the association of Future Group with Amazon is crucial in two ways. It marks the entry of one country’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer into pure e-commerce. Also, it is the second after Tata group’s Croma, which entered into strategic alliance with Snapdeal, to sell its products online.  

With fashion being the key focus category for most e-commerce companies, this alliance will be a crucial step for Amazon to grow into the much sought after fashion category. It currently lags behind Flipkart -- which recently acquired fashion e-tailer Myntra.com -- and Snapdeal in the assortment of products, number of sellers and brands etc.  

Future Group operates some of India’s most popular retail chains including Central, Big Bazaar, Foodhall, Planet Sports, Brand Factory, Home Town and eZone. The group operates around 17 million square feet of retail space in around 98 cities and towns and 40 rural locations across India. The group’s retail formats attract over 300 million customers annually and connect them to around 30,000 small, medium and large enterprises. Amazon started its e-commerce operations in 2013.