- Reliance Retail signed a commercial deal with Facebook’s WhatsApp to further expand its online venture JioMart, the retailer went live in suburban Mumbai areas
After Reliance Retail signed a commercial deal with Facebook’s WhatsApp to further expand its online venture JioMart, the retailer went live in suburban Mumbai areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan, three days
Binding Dependency on WhatsApp ensures it gets direct access to the over 400 million WhatsApp user base.
Customers would need to add JioMart’s WhatsApp number 88500 08000 to their phones to order from JioMart. JioMart sends a connection to the Whatsapp chat window for customers. The relation has a 30-minute validity. Clicking the connection will guide the user to a new page where he will have to fill out his address and telephone number, upon which the product catalog will be made available to order from. Items available include sundry brands along with own private labels from Reliance Retail.
If the final order is issued it will be shared on WhatsApp with the nearest Kirana shop. The customer receives a notification with the order and information about his number from the Kirana / JioMart shop. If Kirana bills the order, the customer will also receive a warning.
Currently, the only available payment option is cash, and the customer must pick up his order from the shop.
Reliance Retail Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd’s retail arm, launched its latest business venture called JioMart last December. Calling itself “Desh Ki Nayi Dukaan,” JioMart is currently catering online shoppers in the suburban Mumbai areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan.
Mint announced last July that Reliance Retail hires distributors to sell private label products through neighborhood stores. RIL will sell its private labels through these Kirana stores under brand names including Best Farming, Good Life, Mas.
Neighborhood shops, supermarkets, hypermarkets, wholesale, niche, and online stores are run by Reliance Retail. The e-commerce site has integrated merchants. In turn, the merchants must provide for the demand. It will allow the company to save money and penetrate markets beyond the typical reach of e-commerce companies currently.
Via this RIL offers local traders a marketplace O2O (online-to-offline), a business model pioneered by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Under the O2O model, a customer searches online for the goods or services but buys it over an offline channel.
