Mukesh Ambani winked to conquer the online-to-offline space a year ago.
And as a sequel, the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, had hinted about JioMart in the Reliance Industries’ 42nd annual general meeting (AGM) in 2019.
Calling his venture as “new commerce”, he quoted, “Our beta trials with thousands of merchants across multiple locations in the country established the premise of new commerce with a significant increase in sales and improvement in margins for the participating merchants.
We are now getting ready to roll out the platform at a larger scale.”
With the launch of online grocery platform, JioMart, the economy witnessed the first step of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) in the commerce space. Desh ki Nayi Dukaan, JioMart would act as an aggregator where it will partner with local grocers and equip them with points of sale (PoS) terminals, low-interest working capital, inventory management skills, and help with GST compliance.
JioMart invites has already been in the picture and are being shared with RIL’s telecom users via Reliance Retail.
The grocery platform is offering its users options to shop from 50,000-plus grocery products, free home delivery with no minimum order value.
The retail arm of RIL, Reliance Retail would be operating JioMart.
The JioMart app is yet to be launched, which, will further connect both last-mile neighbourhood stores and consumers, leverage data of Reliance Jio and its retail arm.
Currently, JioMart is limited to shoppers in the suburban Mumbai areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan.
The road map includes the gradual scaling of the grocery platform’s presence across the country after its successful initial launch (mint report).
Agenda
The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance industries will connect over 3 crore offline retailers with over 20 crore households in India through Reliance JioMart.
The blueprint
As the initial act, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) acquired Haptik and Fynd to step up its e-commerce play and has been working with Kirana stores and consumer brands to create an operational model for new commerce for the last two years.
Along with e-comm majors with grocery plans like Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, JioMart will take on grocery space occupants like Grofers and Bigbasket.
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Roadmap
Geared up for an aggressive acceleration to its e-commerce venture JioMart, RIL is looking forward to march on its aim of generating half of the group’s revenue from the consumer businesses over the next 10 years. At present, the group’s 70 per cent sales come from its traditional oil and gas business.
How to JioMart?
- Customers can pre-register for the launch by providing details such as name, address, mobile number, email address and then generate OTP.
- Consumers can also ask for WhatsApp assistance while registering with the e-commerce website
- There is also an option for consumers to pre-register for the launch on the website and save Rs 3000
Benefits of Shopping with JioMart
- A choice to order from over 50,000 grocery products
- Unlike Amazon, there would be no minimum order value and free delivery is being offered for all purchases
- The website also promises maximum savings
- Consumers would also have the option to return ordered items as there is a “No questions asked return policy”
- JioMart also promises express delivery
Significance
JioMart is expected to link producers, traders, small merchants, and others through technology.
The online platform is expected to function alongside the company’s existing line-up of businesses including supermarkets, hypermarkets, wholesale stores and online stores.
The app will not only connect consumers but also enable kiranas to order at wholesale rates from Reliance’s cash-and-carry stores, Reliance Market, to refill their stocks.
After the acquisition of Hamleys in 2019, the oldest and largest toy shop in the world and one of the world’s best-known toy retailers, Reliance Retail’s valuation stands double of Avenue Supermarts Ltd., which runs India’s biggest supermarket chain, DMart.
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