JioMart is the e-commerce platform of Reliance, which is the first Indian 10 lakh crore market capitalization company. Started in early 2019 as a PoS or point of sale machine installation, in January 2020, JioMartis now officially named as the “new store of India.” It will change the e-commerce ecosystem in India with its tie-up with Facebook in April to utilize its 400 million users.
The other two major e-commerce players in India Amazon and Wal-Mart owned Flipkart now have to run for their money. It is because they will find it difficult to compete with JioMart on many fronts, including data availability and offline sources.
Know About JioMart
JioMart is the e-commerce platform of India’s topmost company, Reliance industries. For the past 47 years from 1973, Reliance has forayed into many sectors from energy to telecommunications. Jio being its flagship telecommunication company, started only in 2016 has more than 30 crore subscribers of the Indian population of 130 crores.
It’s Reliance Retail, which has more than 10,000 retail shops across India, increased its sales by 89 % to 1.3 trillion rupees for the financial year ended in March 2019. Now JioMart is foraying into home delivery of essential goods with no minimum order value, express delivery, and no questions about the return policy and others.
At present, it is only functioning in Navi Mumbai, Kalyan, and Thane and soon to expand all over India.
India’s Retail Business
JioMart is targeting India’s 800 billion USD retail market, which is dominated by groceries, and other daily essentials that account for about $ 500 billion annual sales. Market experts predict it to grow at a minimum rate of 10 % to reach 1.3 trillion USD by the year 2025.
JioMart has recently announced stocking over 50,000 grocery platforms for the consumer to buy all their essential products from it. Also, the recent developments happening in Reliance Jio, even during this severe corona crisis, are sure indications of it to be the game-changer of the e-commerce business in India.
Facebook Buying a 9.9 % Share of Jio
Reliance and Facebook, on April 21, signed a win-win deal to value Jio at 65.95 billion USD. Facebook had bought a 9.9 % stake in Jio for 5.7 billion USD or Rs. 43,574 crores. While Jio eyes the 400 million users of Facebook and Whatsapp in India, Facebook focuses on the 388 million online users that Jio has brought within three and half years of its inception in 2019.
It will benefit both with increased online users for Facebook and for launching the e-commerce platform JioMart in a big way through Whatsapp. Just like other messages sent on Whatsapp, all essential retail products will be easily bought from JioMart soon.
Kirana Stores the First Target of JioMart
There are about 12 million Kirana stores, which are neighborhood retail outlets. Big and small Kirana stores, as per their stock values and customer base, account for about 90 % of the business from this sector.
Though JioMart is first targeting these Kirana stores across India, it is only the start to give fierce competition to the other e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart. As of now, JioMart is only available on the web and soon to be ready to download the app from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
JioMart to Benefit Consumers Never Like Before
JioMart, the e-commerce platform of Reliance, which is ranked 106 in the Fortune Global 500 list in 2019, has many advantages over the other existing e-commerce giants operating in India so far.
By installing PoS machines more than a year ago in early 2019, Reliance had laid the foundation for it. It is leveraging its entire ecosystem from cash and carry units for procuring, private inventory management, generating demand, and door-step delivery.
With its already successful Reliance Retail in almost 6,600 towns in India, it will be easy for them to deliver quality products at competitively fewer costs to the consumers. It is the reason that like it marketed Jio to outsmart its telecommunication competitors, it is soon to come with mega plans for better savings to consumers to beat the e-commerce competitors.
The Counter Steps of Competitors to Control JioMart Monopoly
From $ 39 billion in 2017, the e-commerce market share has grown to $64 billion this year 2020 and expected to grow to $ 200 billion in 2027. With smartphone users increasing every day, which is directionally proportional to the growth of the e-commerce sector, their unprecedented rise will surely continue.
It is the reason that Reliance, the most valid up to 9 lakh crores value crore company is foraying into it with its e-commerce platform JioMart.
But the existing giants’ Amazon, which is the world leader in the e-commerce sector and Flipkart owned by Wal Mart, the world’s largest retail chain, is now to face the heat from JioMart. Now they are rushing in to counter its foray in a big way with the following ways:
· Jeff Bezos who visited India in January has promised $ 1 billion investment in the retail sector
· Amazon has started its project to connect with thousands of Kirana stores to help them sell products online in India
· The project code-named “Local shops in Amazon” countering JioMart’s “new store of India” is to help customers to buy products from local shopkeepers and also to help them to supplement their footfalls.
· Flipkart the other significant players has announced partnering with 37,000 Kirana shops, of which it calls 12,000 of them as authorized “BuyZones.”
Advantages of JioMart to be the next big e-commerce platform in India
With millions FB and Whatsapp users and its own 30 crore subscribers base, it has a lot of advantages over its nearest big e-commerce competitors including
Buying from the Whatsapp link is easier and quicker for the consumers than any other platform.
· With Reliance Digital selling 1.3 trillion rupees value products in 20196 at outlets in more than 6,600 towns across India, it’s online to offline delivery will be faster than any of its competitors.
· The data advantage of JioMart will be more than all its competitors put together as it is now with Facebook
From essential food items linking Kirana stores now, JioMart will soon foray into all products as soon as the corona crisis ends to become the next big e-commerce player in India.