Reliance Retail has a new strategy to bring many prominent global into India: Sell them online first and open brick-and-mortar outlets if any of those brands do well online.

Reliance Retail’s online fashion and lifestyle platform Ajio is ramping up its Ajio Luxe offerings and the online platform is in talks with about two dozen high-end global brands such as Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) among others to bring those labels to India, according to three sources.

“They are test-marketing many of those brands online first before opening stores,” said one source.

Reliance Retail, which owns Ajio, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Over the years, Ajio has added many of the so-called bridge-to-luxury global labels including Armani Exchange, Gas, Replay, Diesel, Steve Madden and Scotch & Soda among other prominent global brands on its site. Now, Ajio is ramping up that segment, they said.

Retail industry insiders estimate that around 20 million Indians at present generally purchase fashion and lifestyle products priced above Rs 6,000 and that market was growing by 20% annually but the pandemic has accelerated the growth trajectory even further.

Tata Cliq had launched a separate app for luxury four years ago and the high-end segment has for the Tata-owned e-commerce site has grown ten times in the last three years.

Currently, Ajio is heavy on its private brands as almost half of the 30 top brands currently sold on Ajio are Reliance Retail’s private labels, which on many occasions have outsold top national and global brands such as Puma, Nike, Levi’s, Superdry, Adidas and US Polo on the e-commerce channel of the country’s largest retailer in the first six months of the current calendar year, ET had reported.

Meanwhile, ET had reported last month that Reliance Retail is foraying into the intensely competitive online retailing of multi-brand beauty and cosmetics business, taking on Nykaa, Myntra and Tata’s proposed similar e-commerce business.

Reliance Brands, the Reliance Retail’s unit that sells upmarket brands, has devised a two-pronged strategy of a dedicated webstore as well as a new brick-and-mortar chain of high-end cosmetics products that will be something similar to LVMH’s Sephora.

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