Shoppers Stop to re-list clothing on Amazon through subsidiary

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
May 3, 2019

The department store chain Shoppers Stop will re-list its products on the e-commerce platform Amazon after previously removing them in February to comply with foreign direct investment regulations.

"We have a subsidiary for our online portal and we are using that to list on Amazon again,” Shoppers Stop’s managing director Rajiv Suri told ET Bureau. “It is compliant to regulatory requirements. Earlier, Shoppers Stop was directly selling to them… We should be back online in few weeks and another few days to ramp up our offerings at Amazon."

Shoppers Stop had previously removed its products, including clothing and accessories, from Amazon because the US business owns a five percent stake in Shoppers Stop. The new government FDI regulations that came into effect from February stated that foreign owned e-commerce platforms cannot retail products from businesses in which they have a stake. The businesses therefore had to amend their business structures and create a subsidiary to comply with the regulations. 

Amazon India acquired a stake in Shoppers Stop two years ago as a foreign portfolio investor. The businesses agreed to utilise each others’ networks and Amazon opened kiosks within certain Shoppers Stop brick-and-mortar department stores. Suri stated that the two brands have already rolled out joint marketing campaigns and that Shoppers Stop is looking into utilising Amazon’s Prime service. 

Shoppers Stop reported sales of Rs 1,044 crore ($156.9 million) for the January to March final quarter of the 2019 financial year. This marked a five percent sales increase and 3.7 percent same store growth.