What is JioMart? JioMart Review

JioMart is an online retail service launched by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). In the initial stage, JioMart only covers some areas around Mumbai. Consumers can place orders from neighborhood grocery stores (Kirana Shops) through JioMart and get free delivery services.

About JioMart

JioMart will act as an “aggregator service provider” that will partner with local grocery stores, provide them with point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, low-interest working capital, inventory management skills, and help them comply with India’s Goods and Services Tax regulatory requirements.

Development Status

1. Reliance Industries' first grocery store, JioMart, is now open to pre-registered customers, promising more than 50,000 types of groceries, free home delivery and an unconditional return policy. It is currently only available in three communities near Mumbai, but a company spokesperson declined to provide more details about the retail project.

2. JioMart’s initial business will cover shoppers in the suburbs and city of Mumbai, as well as in Thane and Kalyan, and will gradually expand its business scope in the future.

3. JioMart has not yet launched a mobile app, which seems to be somewhat different from their positioning as an "online grocery service provider." However, once the new mobile app is released, JioMart will be able to use the data of Reliance Jio and its retail division to connect local stores and consumers and provide them with "last mile" shopping services.

Advantages

1. Utilizing Kirana Shops’ almost zero-cost delivery network, JioMart can theoretically be replicated to many areas in India quickly and at low cost.

2. RIL itself has a huge retail business. By mid-2019, it operated 10,145 retail stores in more than 6,600 towns in India, and was expanding rapidly at a rate of about 10 stores per day.

3. Jio, a telecom operator launched in 2016, quickly opened up the market through large subsidies. At the same time, large-scale investment in infrastructure enabled Jio to almost achieve full 4G coverage in India within a year. So far, Jio has accumulated 350 million users and has put tremendous pressure on competitors including Airtel and Vodafone.

4. Compared with Amazon, Flipkart and Club Factory, RIL's e-commerce business has a core advantage in addition to its own huge retail network: as a local company, it will not be bound by various laws and regulations in India to protect the local retail industry.