Reliance Retail’s digital commerce division gained immeasurably from the pandemic, as scores of Indians took to online ordering for daily essentials. In FY22, the retail behemoth cemented its place further in the segment, recording 4.5 billion visits across its digital platforms, up 2.3X year-on-year.
JioMart (Reliance Indistries' online grocery business) delivered 6 lakh orders per day, a jump of 2.5X year-on-year, the company announced in its 45th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Mumbai on Monday.
JioMart, which had launched in the thick of the Covid lockdown in 2020, now delivers in over 260 cities and towns in India through its hyperlocal model. “Since our launch two years ago, we have grown our merchant partner base to over 20 lakh [2 million] partners. We add about 150,000 partners a month, and are on course to partner with 1 crore merchants as we expand our presence to cover the entire country,” Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Retail stated.
Also Read: Reliance's foray into FMCG can offer stiff competition to biggies like HUL, ITC, Nestle The e-grocery service, which competes with the likes of Tata-owned BigBasket and Zomato-owned Blinkit, looks to serve over 7,500 towns and 3 lakh villages in the next five years. “Our grocery business is the largest in India, serving daily needs of our customers through a network of nearly 2,500 stores, and digital commerce platforms JioMart and Milkbasket,” Isha Ambani added.
Over the last one year, JioMart has also diversified its SKUs across non-food categories, including staples, home care, personal care and general merchandise. To further accelerate its growth, Reliance has partnered with Facebook-parent Meta (which is the largest minority shareholder in Jio Platforms) to launch an end-to-end shopping experience for JioMart customers on WhatsApp.
The new feature allows customers to shop and pay for their order on JioMart from within their WhatsApp chat. “The JioMart on WhatsApp experience furthers our commitment of enabling a simple and convenient way of online shopping to millions of Indians,” Mukesh Ambani, CMD, Reliance Industries, said.
The JioMart on WhatsApp capability is also likely to change the way hundreds of small and local businesses serve and interact with their customers on the messaging platform. Also Read: How Reliance's ambitious 5G rollout plans can change India's digital story