Indian Business mogul Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance plans to integrate its e-commerce app JioMart into WhatsApp within six months, Hindustan Times reported quoting two officials aware of the development. The move will allow 400 million users of India’s most popular messaging service app to shop directly from within.
The integration will allow a seamless operation of shopping experience from within the messaging platform of WhatsApp. The user will not need to switch to other applications in order to shop. This phenomenon will also help Reliance catapult its Retail branch and compete with other retail majors such as Amazon and Flipkart. This will prove to be a real threat to Amazon’s domination in the Indian retail market.
Ambani is trying to spearhead his business in the ever-growing the retail sector, which is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. Reliance is already India’s biggest offline retailer.
Reliance Retail signed a pact with WhatsApp in April 2020 to boost the reach of the online shopping website and a month later launched JioMart across 200 cities and towns in the country. In the same month, Facebook Inc. bought a 9.9% stake in Reliance Industries’ digital unit Jio Platforms for $5.7 billion.
“It is essentially marrying of strengths for both companies. The JioMart integration is essentially adding a retail layer for WhatsApp chats. With payments now available on WhatsApp, it makes all the more sense. Now your chats, retail and payments will all be integrated within the same interface,” said Jayanth Kolla, founder and partner, Convergence Catalyst, a research firm. A Reliance Retail spokesperson did not respond to an email seeking comment. “Through our investment with Jio, we’re going to bring millions of small businesses and the customers they serve into the digital economy. This will make it easier for businesses to connect with customers and close sales,” a WhatsApp spokesperson was quoted as saying by HT.
Another important feature of Reliance JioMart is the amalgamation of the local Kirana stores into its platform. When a customer orders something from JioMart app, the app locates and connects the request to a nearby Kirana store. The order is then delivered by the Kirana shop or Reliance’s logistic arm Grab, which it acquired in 2019 for $14 million.
Reliance not only helps kiranas procure items but, through its point of sale (PoS) machine, offers the Kirana financing, inventory management and tax return filing services, among others.
