Reliance Retail has joined hands with American office supplies retailer Office Depot for a retail alliance in India. The JV has kicked off operations by taking over an existing office [Small & Medium Business] supplier operations eOfficePlanet.
eOfficePlanet is one of the largest vendors in India and sells diverse products ranging from Adhesives, DVDs, Furnitures, Batteries, Electrical Supplies etc. You can view the entire product range for Reliance-Office Depot venture here [PDF]
Mr. Bijou Kurien, President of Reliance Lifestyle said,
This partnership reflects a powerful combination of category leading expertise and global sourcing capabilities of Office Depot with immense distribution reach and deep customer understanding that Reliance Retail has achieved.
Office Depot’s Mr. Brown said,
The JV with Reliance and the acquisition of eOfficePlanet will put Office Depot in a leadership position in India.
FutureGroup’s has partnered with American retailer Staples is an existing player in this space though their presence is only in Bangalore. Now we may expect Office max to team up with Birla Retail or someone else ? Take your guess now 🙂