Tata Group enters e-commerce space

Mumbai, May 27

Tata Group launched an e-commerce venture on Friday, as it seeks to cash in on rising purchasing power in a market dominated by deep-pocketed international retailers and startups backed by global tech investors.

The group said it developed its Tata Cliq website over a year-and-a-half at a cost of “several hundred million dollars” to be a marketplace for in-house and partner companies to sell apparel and electronics.

The move is in line with a second phase in Indian e-commerce development, with the some of the country’s oldest and largest corporations entering an industry established in the past five years by startups Snapdeal and Flipkart.

The market also welcomed global e-commerce firm Amazon.com Inc in 2013, which has invested over $2 billion for growth.

Tata said its focus was profit margins and unit economics, and not just growing sales via discounts.

“We don’t want to get into the discount wars, we want to serve customers with great products and build a sustainable business,” said chief executive Ashutosh Pandey of Tata Unistore, parent of the operator of Tata Cliq. — Reuters