The internet economy is not for India’s industrial conglomerates. The idea of spending billions for years while making no money is enough to make their stomachs turn.

But there are a few corners of the internet where profits are not hard to come by. Selling construction materials online is one of them. And JSW One—the B2B e-commerce platform of the steel-to-cement conglomerate JSW Group—is reversing the playbook of older players such as Infra.Market and Ofbusiness.

Four years in, the platform—which currently sells a predictable mix of cement, steel, concrete, and industrial miscellanea—is moving from a single-brand store (read: JSW products) to a multi-brand marketplace. It’s bringing in outside sellers, including competitors. Tata Steel, Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel, others. And it’s valuedVC CircleJSW One Platforms gets $1 billion valuation in new funding round at $1 billion. 

This is the exact opposite direction taken by its $2.7 billion-valued competitor Infra.Market—what started off as a marketplace now derives nearly 70% of its gross merchandise value (GMV) through its own brands. 

The marketplace model indubitably has a lot of detractors. 

“You are building a channel and customer loyalty for another brand, and you can get thrown out of the equation anytime,” said a competitor in the space who declined to be named because they did not want to be seen commenting on JSW One. Think about it: platforms need to fix the supply chain, make sales, and ensure last-mile delivery, all for near-negligible margins. It’s hardly an attractive proposition.

But JSW is coming at it differently. 

“The idea is to build a trusted, transparent, and scalable ecosystem where customers get access to a wide range of products, competitive pricing, and reliable service—all in one place,” said a category manager from JSW Steel. 

Perhaps what didn’t make sense for Infra.Market will for JSW One. After all, the conglomerate already has its own distribution, logistics, and credit-finance arms. It can leverage these on JSW One for other brands as easily as for its own. In the process, it creates more value for itself, at no extra effort. For now, though, only 10–15% of sales come from non-JSW products.