Ramdev, The Baba of Business, Takes The Hyperlocal Route With Pluss Patanjali Ayurved ties up with Pluss delivery service.

Baba Ramdev has expanded his empire beyond Yoga to FMCG and claims to have crossed Rs 2000 cr in turnover in 2015. The yoga guru's company Patanjali Ayurved Ltd that sells everything from groceries and medicines to home and personal care items.

Market penetration

Playing on the fact that all Patanjali products are 10-40 per cent cheaper than MNC brands in the market, Ramdev aims to take the game a notch higher by collaborating with Hyperlocal startup Pluss. Pluss is a delivery startup for medicines and healthcare products.

Gurgaon-based Pluss will sell Patanjali's range of fast moving consumer goods products, including, groceries, nutrition, healthcare, skincare, dental care and toiletries, through its app, across Delhi and the National Capital Region.

This on-demand platform addresses the consumers' urgent pharmaceutical and health needs. It earns revenue by charging the partner a certain percentage of every order placed through their app. Founded in 2015 by Pandey, Atit Jain and Tarun Lawadi, Pluss, serves four product categories - baby care, pet care, personal wellness and daily essentials. By collaborating with Patanjali, they aim to take the Ayurveda-based products to the masses in Delhi-NCR.

Pluss is backed by venture capital firms, IDG Ventures India, Singapore's M&S Partners and US-based Powerhouse Ventures.

Sky's the limit

Ramdev and his close associate Acharya Balkrishna are quite upbeat about their expansion plans. According to a report, Patanjali will foray into malted beverage drinks. With malted drinks that are popularly known as health drinks in India, Baba Ramdev plans to take on multinational giants in a big way this year.

This year, Ramdev will also do something that he has not done before is - tie up with an advertising agency for future expansion.