Reliance Jio has become a household name in India at this moment. With millions of people using mobility services from Reliance Jio and the brand venturing into many verticals like applications, hard tech (JioPhone) and other areas well. The flag-bearer for all these brands is the parent company of all, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). However, there was one area which Reliance Jio had not yet stepped in, and that was e-commerce. But, even this vertical is not out of bounds for RIL now. Reliance Jio chairman, Mukesh Ambani had hinted towards the launch of such an initiative last year with the use of phrase “new commerce”. But, the new e-commerce venture of Reliance Jio is already launched now. Although you should note that the application is not yet available for all the users and is geographically limited, it can be said that it will compete with the likes of Flipkart and Amazon. The pilot for this new service being called the ‘JioMart’ is available in Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan right now. Under this new project, Reliance Jio is projected to connect 3 crore offline retailers, with over 20 crore households.
JioMart to Be Under Reliance Retail
It is worth noting that JioMart will be a venture which would be under Reliance Retail which is the Retail arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). Firstly, Reliance Retail had started taking pre-registrations for the JioMart and is now offering over 50,000 grocery products with free home delivery and no compulsion of any kind of minimum order. There are also other features like no questions asked return and express delivery promise. With these new initial offerings and services, JioMart is likely trying to convert the customers of Amazon and Flipkart at least for grocery services. As per a Mint report on the matter, Reliance Jio is also sending out invites to its users to try out JioMart. The JioMart website also shows that early customers would be getting a Rs 3,000 credit in their account.
JioMart to Get Customers for Local Vendors
There is going to be a little difference in the way how RIL’s JioMart will work and how Amazon and Flipkart work. So, instead of setting up a native warehouse where the e-commerce company houses all its products, JioMart will source the products from the local vendors similar to how Grofers and Amazon Prime Now used to do in their earlier days. This kind of operations are called online to online or O2O. The model will also allow the local vendors to cater to online customers in their area.
During the 42nd Annual General Meeting, Reliance Jio chairman said, “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.”
JioMart Threatens Position of Amazon Prime Now
It is worth noting that JioMart would be offering products like soaps, shampoos and other day-to-day household items to its customers. It is worth noting that Amazon Prime Now promises two hour delivery in the case of such grocery items and there, the new JioMart service is likely to be a competitor for Amazon now. Reliance Jio has also partnered up with software companies like C-Square that serves solutions to distributors, retailers, online e-commerce, and sales force automation. Also, the giant had made the acquisition of logistics services platform Grab A Grub back in March this year to help its e-commerce initiative.
