Rupa News: Descendants of Rupa & Co. take over Cloudtail’s home, kitchen and sports business

Kolkata-based clothing manufacturer Rupa and Company’s third-generation promoters — Siddhant Agarwal and Aparesh Agarwal — have launched a new seller business called RetailEZ on Amazon India, according to multiple sources aware of the matter.

The new entity will take over Cloudtail’s home and kitchen business from vendors and suppliers, the sources said.

RetailEZ is among many new sellers taking over Cloudtail’s business after Amazon acquired its parent company, Prione.

Cloudtail was the largest seller on Amazon, and the retailer closed it after acquiring a 100% stake in Prione because existing norms do not allow a company running an online marketplace or its affiliates to own shares in a seller own or control its inventory of the Platform.

Ramesh Agarwal, Rupa and Co’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), confirmed the development to ET.

However, he clarified that RetailEZ is a separate entity unaffiliated with the publicly traded company.

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“RetailEZ is a new initiative from Rupa Promoters Group – designed to capitalize on India’s digital boom and mass access to smartphones and internet,” reads their profile on professional networking platform LinkedIn.

In addition to household and kitchen items, RetailEZ will also sell sports-related products such as fitness equipment, Agarwal said.

Several brands are in the process of winning new deals with RetailEZ.

“They (RetailEZ) have been referred to us to transfer the cloudtail business for the segment. We’re in the transition process,” a vendor told ET in talks with the company.

RetailEZ has not responded to inquiries from ET at press time.

ET has previously reported on this
Cloudtail would relocate his business to several new and existing seller companies after the acquisition by Amazon.

However, the transition was not smooth.

ET reported on July 8
Sales of fast-moving consumer goods have declined significantly on Amazon India by brand including

and found it difficult to give credit to the new vendors due to a lack of experience in handling large volumes of business and lack of the necessary processes and technology.

Amazon is helping these new sellers through the transition by asking former Cloudtail employees to work with them on a temporary basis.

In March, part of Cloudtail’s electronics business was transferred to VRP Telematics and Dawntech Electronics. The health and personal care business will move to Rocket Kommerce, while the fashion and apparel category has been acquired from Cocoblu Retail.

These new sellers are backed by various old economy companies.

Dawntech is owned by South India’s leading real estate company, Salarpuria-Sattva Group. Cocoblu Retail is a newly listed e-commerce seller that was incorporated last October and is a wholly owned subsidiary based in Delhi

which received a fund infusion of Rs 350 crore from the promoters in January.

RocketKommerce was backed by RK World Tech, which was a seller of OnePlus phones on Amazon before entering the personal care and FMCG business.

VRP Telematics is also an existing seller at Amazon India and also works for the e-commerce company’s own brands such as Solimo and AmazonBasics.

Prior to the acquisition, Cloudtail was majority owned by

Co-founder of Narayana Murthy’s family investment arm, Catamaran Ventures.

Amazon also founded Frontizo Business Services in a joint venture with the Patni Group in 2017.

While Frontizo provides customer support services for Amazon India, its subsidiary Appario Retail is a major seller in the Amazon India marketplace.

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Sybil Alvarez

"Incurable gamer. Infuriatingly humble coffee specialist. Professional music advocate."

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