Reliance Retail to foray into fashion wholesale

Looking to establish its unorganized bulk business of garments and accessories, Reliance Retail is entering wholesale of fashion and lifestyle products through both offline and online channels. Along with its branded range, the wholesale business will aim at small and medium retailers nationwide for bulk supply of products, including its own branded material. It plans also to service customers through a B2B portal.

Reliance Retail has put together a team that is working on a raft of private labels specifically to sell to small and medium retailers. It is enrolling small and medium independent suppliers as well for the venture.

The new venture will focus on the growing fashion market in India, especially in small cities. Reliance Retail has already consolidated its position in FMCG segment with the label Reliance Market where it is selling food products, general merchandise as well as some amount of ready-made garments.

The company also runs one of the biggest fashion store networks in India, Reliance Trends, which added more than 100 outlets, or about 1 million sq ft of retail space, in fiscal year ended March 2018. The fashion arm has over 450 outlets spread across over 220 cities nationwide. Given the nature of unorganised wholesale market for such products, it makes sense for Reliance to venture into wholesaling of fashion and lifestyle products.