Reliance Retail plans major expansion of Reliance Trends in e-commerce push

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd plans to grow the number of low-cost Reliance Trends fashion stores across India to 2,500 from 557 over the next five years and integrate them with its e-commerce business, two people briefed on the plans said.

The expansion, which has not been reported before, is the latest move by RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani to grab a dominant share of Indian consumer spending in a struggle with rivals, particularly e-commerce giants Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart.

Reliance’s plans to diversify into e-commerce and expand in fashion come on the heels of India’s new e-commerce policy that have dealt at least a temporary blow to Amazon and Flipkart.