With supermarkets and malls continue to be no-go zones in most parts of the country as Indians stay home to break the chain of coronavirus infections, JioMart seems to have capitalised on this opportunity.
To meet customer's requirements for essentials, the beta version of the JioMart grocery consumer platform (jiomart.com) was launched across 200 cities, followed by an app later on.
Within a few weeks of launch, JioMart was delivering over four lakh orders daily, which according to Reliance Industries (RIL) is significantly higher than any other grocery home delivery company.
“Orders have continued to scale up since inception,” it said.
After the lockdown was announced on March 24, customers struggled to buy groceries and other essentials from established e-retailers like Big Basket, D-Mart Ready, Big Bazaar and Amazon.
The sudden spike in orders led to delays and even cancellations as restrictions on the movement of people and goods hobbled these companies.
Kirana shops came to the rescue of harried customers. JioMart connected them to their smaller but efficient neighbourhood grocery stores.
“Grocery witnessed strong customer traction as stores remained open, though with restrictions on operations and products to be sold. Apart from continued momentum in staples, categories such as hygiene products and packaged foods did particularly well leading to higher bill values,” the company said.
During its 43rd Annual General Meeting (AGM), RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said JioMart is now accepting over 2.5 lakh orders daily from across India and the number is rising fast with each passing day. "The USP of JioMart is its smart store price promise. JioMart offers attractive prices on essentials with a minimum 5 percent discount on all products."
The bouquet of JioMart products now includes a wide range of personal care products, home and kitchen care products, puja needs, shoe care, baby care products, branded foods etc.
Despite the challenging environment brought about the novel coronavirus pandemic, where store functioning and digital commerce fulfilment was severely impacted by the lockdown and restrictions (50 percent stores were fully shut and 29 percent partially operated), Reliance Retail clocked significant revenue of Rs 31,633 crore and an operating profit of Rs 1,083 crore in Q1 FY21.
Growth plansJioMart is in the process of expanding its partnership with kirana stores across more cities. “Expansion across cities is underway with many more kirana partners are being on-boarded,” the company said.
JioMart launchIt was on April 26, four days after Reliance Retail signed a deal with Facebook-owned WhatsApp, that JioMart went live in Thane, Kalyan and Navi Mumbai after five months of a soft launch.
On May 23, RIL expanded its JioMart service to customers across several cities after successfully conducting a pilot across Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan and launched website jiomart.com to place an order.
JioMart app
JioMart, Reliance Retail’s beta online consumer grocery platform, recently went live on Apple and Google Play Stores.
A few days since its launch, the app crossed 10 lakh downloads. JioMart is one of the most popular apps in Google Play Store’s ‘shopping’ category, third only behind Amazon and Flipkart.
The app is also the second most popular app in the ‘shopping’ category on Apple’s app store.
JioMart was launched with an aim to compete with Amazon and Flipkart, the companies that have dominated India’s e-retail space.
