“We will definitely look at getting into the consumer space via the e-commerce route if foreign direct investment rules are tweaked by the new Government,” said Krish Iyer, President & CEO of Walmart.

Speaking to BusinessLine , he said: “If we get into a new business area, we need to study it properly, do feasibility studies and build a separate team.”

Walmart had initially partnered the Bharti Group to start a cash-and-carry business in India. The US giant wants to roll out its physical retail stores but does not consider the current FDI rules favourable. For now it is focussed on expanding its cash-and-carry business and exploring opportunities in the e-commerce space.

The American retail giant operates inventory-based e-commerce businesses in Brazil, China, Canada and Japan.

India currently prohibits global online retailers from selling goods directly to customers but allows them to wholly own a marketplace business, where third-party suppliers can use their platform. Both Amazon and eBay use such a platform to operate in the country.

But the new Government is reviewing the FDI rules governing e-commerce sector and could allow FDI in all types of online platforms.

B2B platform Walmart also announced plans to launch a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform for its registered trader partners from July. This platform is, however, not open to individual users.

“We have announced our pilot to be launched in Lucknow and Hyderabad for B2B ecommerce. It is important to understand how re-sellers and our member base respond to placing orders on the Net. If that really works well, in the next six months we will roll it out in the rest of the stores,” Iyer said.

Iyer said the company will have a clear roadmap on its B2B e-commerce business by January 2015. “We are dealing with tier 2 and 3 towns and a lot of work goes in educating, hand-holding retailers. That is the reason we are calling it a pilot.”

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