Reliance Retail buys Urban Ladder.
                     Reliance Retail buys 
Urban Ladder
INTRODUCTION
• Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has 
acquired online furniture seller Urban 
Ladder Home Decor Solutions Pvt. Ltd 
for ₹182.12 crore, expanding its 
presence in India’s fast-growing              
e-commerce market.
Source: www.livemint.com
Urban Ladder
• Eight-year-old Urban Ladder operates a 
digital platform for home furniture and 
decor products. 
• It also has a chain of retail stores in 
several cities. 
• It was valued at around ₹1,200 crore in 
2018, which dropped to around ₹750 
crore in 2019.
Source: www.livemint.com
Reliance Retail 
Ventures Ltd
• Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the 
retail unit of billionaire Mukesh 
Ambani’s RIL, bought 96% of Urban 
Ladder and has the option to buy the 
remaining 4% stake. 
Source: www.livemint.com
Investment
•  RRVL proposes to make a further 
investment of up to ₹75 crore, taking 
its ownership to 100% in the furniture 
e-tailer, which is expected to be 
completed by December 2023.
Source: www.livemint.com
The Urban Ladder 
acquisition
• The Urban Ladder acquisition comes 
three months after Reliance Retail 
acquired a majority stake in online 
pharma firm Netmeds for around ₹620 
crore.
Source: www.livemint.com
Consumer 
Products 
• The investment will further enable the 
group’s digital and new commerce 
initiatives and widen the bouquet of 
consumer products provided by the 
group while enhancing user 
engagement and experience across its 
retail offerings.
Source: www.livemint.com
Online furniture 
retail brands
• The acquisition of Urban Ladder will 
create a few, large dominant online 
furniture retail brands, which will see 
Reliance and e-commerce 
marketplaces Flipkart and Amazon 
gaining market share along with 
existing furniture e-tailers like 
Pepperfry.
Source: www.livemint.com
Online furniture 
market in India 
• Data by RedSeer Consulting shows the 
online furniture market in India grew at 
an annual average pace of 
approximately 80-85% to touch $700 
million in FY20. But online has less than 
3% share in the overall furniture 
market, pegged at $17 billion.
Source: www.livemint.com
Challenges
• The past two years have been 
challenging for the e-furniture market 
as funding remained subdued, and 
investors pressured them to turn 
profitable.
Source: www.livemint.com
Gross Merchandise 
Value
• The share of home furniture continues 
to be a small part of online retail, and 
clubbed with e-grocery and online 
beauty products, raked up only 11% of 
the overall festive gross merchandise 
value (GMV) in the first week of e-
commerce sales this year.
Source: www.livemint.com