MUMBAI: Future Group, the retail business, is teaming up with Google India to open a chain of member-only, tech-driven stores under the Easyday name in a development they termed “Retail 3.0”.

Kishore Biyani, Future Group chief executive, dated Retail 1.0 to the 1990s when modern retail took off in India, followed a decade later by Retail 2.0 and the emergence of e-commerce and now Retail 3.0.

“We will have 10,000 member-only stores by 2022, and assuming certain spends, this will be a Rs 1.5 trillion business opportunity for the group,” he said.

Membership will be limited to 2,000 per store and each member will pay an annual fee of Rs 999 for benefits that include a 10% discount on all purchases, the Economic Times reported.

Biyani expects that half of the members – a total of 10m people – will have an average spend of Rs 1 lakh per annum translating into revenues of Rs 1 trillion.

The ultimate aim is to have a store within 2km of every consumer, which is where Google comes in – using all the various data it collects to help identify the best locations to put stores.

Data and artificial intelligence will also help Future Group understand consumer behaviour and requirements. “Data will enable us to do things one can’t imagine,” said Biyani.

With the floor area of a typical store coming in at 2,500-3,000 square feet, it will carry 3,500 stock keeping units, but members will also have digital access to the company’s entire inventory.

Biyani’s announcement comes just a few days after reports that Reliance Retail would make a major move into e-commerce in 2018 utilising its own stores and outlets selling connections to its Jio phone network as fulfilment centres.

Sourced from Economic Times, Mint; additional content by WARC staff