Physical retail is future and threat to online retail: Kishore Biyani

Emphasising on physical retail as the need of the hour, Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said that physical retail is a threat to online retail, which has a low business share and a high cost of business.

"Online retail has a threat from us and it's time people realised that they are not a threat to us, as they don't even have 1% business share and the cost of doing business is also too high," Biyani was quoted as saying to PTI.

Although the next trend is digitisation, he believes physical and digital are not different as a layering of technology over physical is the need of the hour. He also thinks that online shopping of consumer items by Indians have gone away. "If you look the world over, Alibaba is only buying physical retail, so is Amazon and therefore times have changed," Biyani added.

When asked about his views on online retail taking over physical retail, Biyani said both are converging and ten years from now everything will converge completely and the company has always been at the forefront, not missing any trend.

Also Read: E-commerce companies will never turn profitable: Kishore Biyani

Expressing his views on online retail taking over physical retail, Biyani said both are converging and ten years from now everything will converge completely. "China which people think is the most digital driven country has 82 percent physical, America has 89 percent physical model and similarly India too has huge potential for physical retail as online share is very less," Biyani said.

Kishore Biyani's future plan

Last week, the Future Group unveiled a 30-year vision, Retail 3.0, by when it plans to become Asia's largest integrated consumer retailer by 2047 with revenue of in excess of USD 1 trillion.

The company plans to open Easyday small-store within 2 km of every Indian consumer by 2022. There will be around 10,000 stores in five years, with the first coming in next 30 days. Each EasyDay Club store will be for registered members only, with each store accepting only 2,000 members. In last six month, the company has grown 30 percent.

According to a joint report by Ficci and Deloitte, Indian retail industry which is growing at 10 percent, may almost double to Rs 85 trillion (lakh crore) by 2021. The consumer spending will rise backed by robust economic growth and rising household incomes, outlined another report by Ficci and PwC last year.

Company: Future Group