What: Trent's consumer complaints rose 35% to over 300,000 in FY26 on the back of its online business, while Avenue Supermarts cut DMart Ready from 24 markets to 11 and Reliance Retail disowned order-volume targets.

Why it is important: The operational cost of online growth — complaints, refunds, returns and unprofitable markets — is proving heavier than the balance-sheet losses, even as ecommerce's share of total sales stays flat at 1–2 percentage points of growth over four to five years.

Rising consumer complaints, costly market exits and pressure to rein in online discounts are new burdens for Indian retailers competing with Amazon and Flipkart without undermining their core stores. Trent's annual report linked a 35% jump in complaints, to over 300,000 in FY26, to its growing online business; V-Mart Retail and Titan reported increases of 14% and 9%, each passing 130,000. Shoppers Stop saw a slight decline, with grievances centred on delivery status, refunds and returns.

The harder call is when to exit. Avenue Supermarts pruned DMart Ready from 24 markets to 11 top-performing cities last quarter, after MD Anshul Asawa found that expansion bought a large customer base at the cost of significant losses. Reliance Retail CFO Dinesh Taluja said the company would avoid chasing volume or vanity order metrics and scale back where profitability assumptions fail. Croma has aligned store and online prices after finding that 70–80% of consumers research prices online before buying in store.

Ecommerce's share of total sales at large listed retailers has grown by no more than 1–2 percentage points in four to five years, yet Avenue Supermarts approved up to ₹500 crore more for online grocery as net losses rose 24% to ₹306 crore.

IADS Notes:  The retreat from loss-making online markets runs alongside a parallel bet on physical space: India Economic Times reported in July 2026 that India's ten largest listed retailers added a net 2,182 stores in FY26, with Reliance, DMart and Trent raising over Rs 4,000 crore, treating outlets as fulfilment infrastructure rather than a rejection of digital. That build-out responds to a market whose online segment has reached $250 billion and prompted traditional retailers to press for regulatory safeguards (India Economic Times, April 2026), with growth concentrated in Tier II and III cities where Amazon and Flipkart set the competitive terms (Bain & Company, April 2026). The cost side is equally documented: returns amount to an $850 billion annual drag on profitability, pushing retailers towards AI-based risk management and reworked return policies (The Robin Report, April 2026), while flat quarterly profit at Reliance Retail alongside a 600-dark-store rollout (India Economic Times, April 2026) shows expansion and margin discipline being pursued simultaneously.

For retailers, ecommerce highs come with headaches