Now, Patanjali locks horns with e-tailers

Patanjali Ayurved would take legal action against e-tailers selling its products at a discount and would come out with a media campaign to explain its pricing strategy, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

Patanjali has already informed brick-and-mortar retailers not to offer discounts on its products.

“Online retailers are offering discounts on their own.

"This is illegal, unofficial and unwarranted. We will take legal action against them,” said S K Tijarawala, the Patanjali spokesperson.

"Our products have low margins and we do not divert profits to other purposes," he added.

E-commerce major Amazon was on Wednesday advertising online a 25 per cent or more discount on select Patanjali products.

A mail to Amazon did not draw any response.

A mailer from Netmeds, an online retailer, stated there was a 15 per cent discount on and free home delivery of Patanjali products.

However, the mailer carried a disclaimer that it was sent out by a third-party vendor and not by Netmeds.

When contacted, a Netmeds spokesperson said the firm did not offer any discounts on Patanjali products nor it was running any offer on its products.

“If someone offers a 15 per cent discount on a Patanjali product, he will be selling at a loss,” said a Future Group executive.

Though offline retailers do not offer discounts, Tata’s Star, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Reliance Retail offer loyalty points on purchase of Patanjali products.

Patanjali Ayurved, founded in 2007 by yoga guru Ramdev, is targeting Rs 10,000-crore (Rs 100-billion) revenue in 2016-17 after sales grew 10 times in five years.

The company has 4,000 distributors, 10,000 stores and 100 mega-marts.

Patanjali will invest Rs 1,150 crore (Rs 11.5 billion) this financial year to set up six processing units and one research centre.