Amazon India seller Appario Retail to stop selling on platform within a year

E-commerce firm Amazon India on Friday, October 28, said online seller Appario Retail Private Ltd will cease to be a seller from the company's online platform within 12 months.

"Amazon and India's Patni group-owned Zodiac Wealth Management LLP have agreed to renew their joint venture Frontizo Business Services Private Limited. Partners have decided that Appario Retail Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frontizo, will cease to be a seller on amazon.in and amazon.in/business within the next 12 months," a joint statement said.

Appario Retail is one of Amazon's largest sellers in India and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Frontizo Business Services, which is a joint venture between Amazon India and Patni Group-owned Zodiac Wealth Management LLP. It mainly sells smartphones, smartwatches, electronics, etc across brands.

Appario and Cloudtail are the two most prominent sellers on the e-tailer's platform, which came under CCI scanner earlier this year for being Amazon's preferred sellers.

Online retail firm Cloudtail India, one of the largest sellers on the Amazon India marketplace, stopped selling on the e-tailer's platform in May 2022.

Cloudtail is primarily engaged in the business of trading goods on the e-commerce marketplace. It is a joint venture (JV) firm between Infosys Founder N.R. Narayana Murthy and Amazon.

The JV was dissolved after Murthy's Catamaran, which held a 74 percent stake in the Prione Business Services, that operated the JV, decided to discontinue it in August last year. The American e-commerce giant holds a 24 percent share.

Prione Business Services was formed in 2014 and was up for renewal on May 19, 2022. However, in August, Amazon and Catamaran announced that they have mutually decided to not continue their joint venture beyond May 2022.