Business behemoth, Reliance Industries Ltd owned by one of Asia’s richest people Mukesh Ambani is set to launch an omnichannel beauty portal to compete with cosmetics-to-fashion sites Nykaa and Walmart-owned Myntra, among others. RIL’s recent acquisitions of retail tech firm Fynd and e-pharmacy marketplace Netmeds will also aid in the development of the cosmetics platform, as per the Economic Times.
Sources told ET that the beauty platform is being created together with Fynd and Netmeds. While Netmeds will oversee the backend warehousing and data administration from Chennai, Fynd is constructing the frontend and putting the consumer interface in place.
The new initiative from the Mumbai-based oil-to-telecom giant is a marketplace concept under Reliance Retail and will compete with FSN E-Commerce Ventures, the parent company of Nykaa, which went public in November of last year.
Reliance Retail has signed arrangements with approximately half a dozen big cosmetics and beauty companies to sell on its platform, according to a senior executive. Internally, it is known as Project Adore. “Reliance Retail is in the process of marking out specific zones within the group’s physical stores such as Reliance Mart, to amplify its beauty vertical and integrate the marketplace with its offline stores,” he added.
Reliance is capitalising on the fast emergence of relatively young e-commerce firms in the beauty sector such as The Good Glamm Group and Purplle, by making the most of favourable customer mood.
Read more: India’s Manikaran Power And Nepal Power Exchange Enter Trade Agreement
Reliance’s new brand is likely to be called Tiara, and RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani is said to be heavily involved in the initiative. Isha is also in charge of Reliance’s fashion website Ajio and is the director of Reliance Retail.
According to another executive, Reliance’s cosmetic initiative would be integrated into their super app, MyJio. Meanwhile, another official stated that the Tata Group is also developing its own strategy for entering the beauty industry and has begun engaging personal care companies to get their support.
