Godman Baba Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurved announced the expansion of its ecommerce operations in a bid to boost its reach etailing segment. The Haridwar-based FMCG brand entered into agreements with Amazon, Flipkart, ShopClues, Paytm Mall, 1MG, NetMed, Bigbasket and Grofers to sell its products on their platforms. The fact that all the platforms are either foreign-owned or have major foreign investment doesn't seem to have affected the decision, despite Patanjali's frequent portrayal of itself as a 'Swadeshi' brand. Patanjali Ayurved said in a statement that its own e-commerce platform patanjaliayurved.net "yielded good dividend and response at trial stage itself" with online sales crossing the ₹10 crore mark in December. The company says its latest push aims to take its products from "Haridwar to Har Dwar" (from Haridwar to every doorstep). “We believe our partnerships with e-commerce platforms will help increase the reach of Patanjali products to more and more consumers in urban and rural regions,” Ramdev said in a statement, adding that Patanjali targets to generate more than ₹1,000 crore from the e-commerce channel in the first year. While making the announcement, Ramdev stated that Patanjali products will be sold across e-commerce portals at the maximum retail price and not at discounts. “Also, it will not have a negative impact on traditional sales channels. We are also focusing on growing offline distribution. At the same time, we will be launching Patanjali loyalty programme later this month at the exclusive brand stores,” Ramdev added. With the associations with the e-commerce companies, Ramdev said Patanjali…
