Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries (RIL), India’s most valuable company, is poised to unveil its omnichannel beauty platform to take on cosmetics-to-fashion platform Nykaa, Walmart-owned Myntra among others. Further, RIL’s two recent buyouts—retail tech startup Fynd and e-pharmacy marketplace Netmeds—will help in launching the beauty platform.
The beauty platform is being developed jointly by Fynd and Netmeds, people with direct knowledge of the matter told ET. While Netmeds will be responsible for the backend — warehousing and data management — from Chennai, Fynd is building the frontend and is putting in place the customer interface.
The Mumbai-based oil-to telecom conglomerate’s new venture has been made as a marketplace model under Reliance Retail and will challenge beauty retailer Nykaa. FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which runs online marketplace Nykaa, went public in November last year.
Looking at its competitor, Reliance Retail has got in agreements with about half a dozen leading cosmetics and beauty brands to sell on the marketplace, the financial daily quoted a senior executive as saying. The executive further revealed that it is being called Project Adore internally.
“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.
Seeing the rapid rise of relatively new e-commerce players in the beauty market such as The Good Glamm Group and Purplle, Reliance is jumping on the opportunity to see positive consumer sentiment.
Reliance’s new brand is likely to be called Tiara, and RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail, is closely involved in the project. The online is expected to be integrated with Reliance’s fashion website Ajio, which is also overseen by Isha Ambani.
Reliance’s beauty venture is expected to be a part of their super app, MyJio, another executive said.
Meanwhile, another executive mentioned that the Tata Group, too, is working on its own blueprint to enter the beauty business. It has started approaching personal care brands to get them on board.
