Future Group's plan to boost online sales has encountered a cyber obstacle. Its flagship e-commerce portal, FutureBazaar, was hacked and has been non-functional for the past two days.
FutureBazaar CEO Rajiv Prakash described the incident as a "denial of service attack." He stated, "The website has been down for the last couple of days and has been blocked to consumers."
The company is addressing the issue internally and pursuing legal action against the hackers. "We have filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Branch in Mumbai. Internally, we are working to get the site up and running, and it should be fine soon," Prakash assured.
To minimize business losses, the company has kept its phone commerce active, allowing consumers to make purchases through this channel.
Prakash did not comment on the potential daily losses due to the problem. However, the portal is one of the group’s emerging business verticals.
Future Group aims to have at least 10% of its total retail revenue, approximately Rs 10,000 crore, come from digital platforms within the next three years.
As part of this plan, the group is strengthening its online businesses, led by FutureBazaar and other retail format portals. The portal launched the 'battle for best price' offer ahead of the festive season, selling a particular item for four days every fortnight.
The laptop offer around Diwali received a good response, selling about 4,000 units and generating close to Rs 10 crore in revenue.
