- After successfully conducting a pilot across areas in Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan, Reliance Industries has extended its JioMart service nationwide.
After successfully conducting a pilot across areas in Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan, Reliance Industries has extended its JioMart service nationwide.
Customers may now log in to the newly launched jiomart.com website to place an order. An app has not been released live yet.
Although the company has not verified the list of cities where the service was initiated, punching in pin codes from various metro stations such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata indicates that those areas are serviceable.
JioMart is an online grocery shopping destination powered by the Smart and Fresh stores at Reliance Retail. The reliancesmart.in website also redirects to jiomart.com
The platform has a complete catalog covering, among others, categories such as fruits and vegetables, dairy and bakery, personal care, home care, and baby care.
Reliance has merged its registered Reliance Fresh consumer database and other retail enterprises into JioMart. The platform currently only provides payments through Netbanking and credit/debit cards — more payment options could be added later.
If the order value is less than Rs 750 a delivery charge of Rs 25 is imposed.
For the past several months, JioMart has conducted a pilot project in several areas of Navi Mumbai, Thane, and Kalyan.
It went live last month with a WhatsApp business account, whereby customers can add a number to their contact and place an order. However, the WhatsApp service is still limited to selecting the pin codes.
Reliance Retail is the biggest offline retailer in India with 11,784 outlets. Reliance plans to converge with JioMart offline and online trade not only by driving the online service via inventory from its Smart and Fresh stores but also by spreading hyperlocal ‘Reliance Smart Points’ across the region.
Reliance also plans to register small Kirana stores on its networks, enabling customers to order online and deliver food from their neighborhood.
Facebook announced last month that it is investing $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms. Analysts expect Reliance to ride on WhatsApp’s omnipresent reach (owned by Facebook) to integrate the messaging app’s seamless shopping experience, which is about to launch a payment service.