Reliance Retail to enter online grocery business with JioMart

Reliance Retail, the retail arm of Reliance Industries, is all set to launch its new ecommerce venture JioMart as it looks to enter online food and grocery business by early next year, multiple media reports said.

JioMart will operate in the suburban Mumbai areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan.

According to reports, the launch will happen in March and the company plans to gradually scale up its presence. A soft launch has already happened and most of the Jio users have received invites to register preliminary discounts.

Alibaba-backed BigBasket and Grofers, which has raised funds from SoftBank, are two key players in the heavily-funded grocery ecommerce segment in India. Etailer giants Amazon and Flipkart are the other major players in the market. The JioMart app will leverage data and technology capabilities of Reliance’s telecom business Jio and cash-and-carry infrastructure of its retailing arm. It claims to offer a selection of over 50,000 grocery products, no-charge deliveries, low prices and easy returns.

According to The Economic Times, the new venture will partner with local grocers and equip them with points of sale (PoS) terminals, low-interest working capital, inventory management skills and GST compliance. 

Reliance Jio declined to comment on the development.

After launching Jio in 2016, it has expanded to various digital services including digital streaming, music, home broadband, and TV.  The company has over 355 million subscribers.

RIL has been operating in the ecommerce space with fashion  site AJIO.com, launched in 2016. Reliance recently announced that it was restructuring Jio to attract investors. In April 2019, media reports speculated that Jio was in talks with Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund for an investment of up to $3 billion.