Cloudtail, Appario push brands for higher margins

New Delhi | Kolkata: Cloudtail and Appario, the two largest sellers on Amazon.in, are renegotiating deals and asking for higher margins from brands and distributors as they chase profitability post equity dilution by Amazon, multiple people familiar with the development said.

“They are asking for 18-20% hike of margins on the existing margin base,” said a top executive of a large FMCG seller on Cloudtail, owned by InfosysNSE 1.77 % cofounder NR Narayana Murthy. “For example, earlier they were charging 10% margin for a particular product, now (they are) asking for 12% margin.”

The move comes barely months after Amazon, which was a joint venture partner in both Cloudtail and Patni Group-owned Appario, significantly reduced its stake in both the firms to small minority shares following a change in foreign direct investment (FDI) rules for ecommerce marketplaces in December.