Tata group launches e-commerce platform

MUMBAI: The Tatas on Friday rolled out its latest digital initiative, Tata CLiQ, offering to sell high-value branded products, as the Mumbai-based conglomerate attempts

MUMBAI: The Tatas on Friday rolled out its latest digital initiative, Tata CLiQ, offering to sell high-value branded products, as the Mumbai-based conglomerate attempts to expand customer base.

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TataCliq is curated by Tata Industries, which owns 90% stake in the venture, with the group’s retail arm Trent owning the remaining 10%, and is run by Tata UniStore.

“TataCLiQ.com brings a smart combination of reassurance and in-store experience of large onground network with the convenience of online shopping,” said Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry.

The conglomerate has already launched two digital initiatives — big data analytics and a healthcare portal — as part of a more than Rs 1,000-crore exercise.

“There are only 30 million regular online shoppers in India and there is immense potential to bring the next 100 million with an offering that builds from their current path to purchase, rather than expecting them to change behaviour,” said TataCliq CEO Ashutosh Pandey. “TataCLiQ.com aims to achieve this by plugging need gaps across instore and online shopping with its unique phygital services.” Phygital implies a blending of physical and digital.

After seeing a large investor interest in ecommerce, domestic players are now seeing a “sobering of valuations” as rising costs and a crowded marketplace has made it more expensive to operate. But the potential is huge — from 2% of overall retail sales, the industry estimates it will touch 11%.