Reliance’s e-commerce venture JioMart makes a silent debut, calls for pre-registrations

• JioMart launches as a grocery retail platform delivering in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan.
• Reliance is also calling for pre-registrations which promises to save ₹3,000 at the time of launch.
• Jio’s entry is a threat to e-commerce bigwigs, Amazon, Flipkart and also startups like BigBasket, Grofers, Swiggy, Dunzo.

Reliance Industries has silently launched its much talked about e-commerce venture, JioMart.

JioMart is a grocery retail platform that calls itself ‘desh ki nayi dukaan’. The website says that it is currently available in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan - suburbs of Mumbai.

“Yes, we have soft-launched our operations. All Jio users are sent invites to register to avail of preliminary discounts. Though it is currently only in three regions, we would be scaling it up further. The JioMart app will be launched soon," an official told Mint.

Reliance is also calling for pre-registrations from users with savings of as much as ₹3,000.

This step can help boost the valuation of the business which has 10,901 physical stores across the country. Reliance Industries said that it plans to spin off its retail venture, and the new digital avatar can boost its valuation.

An IANS report pegs the value of Reliance Retail at ₹2.4 lakh crore as per a share swap scheme. It basically calculated the value of the business as RIL offered one share of the combined entity for every four shares of retail business. Also, RIL stock touched ₹10 lakh crore this year, boosting the value of all its businesses.

JioMart’s debut is a threat to several e-commerce players who have been scaling up their grocery retail operations like – Amazon, Flipkart to startups like BigBasket, Grofers, Swiggy, Dunzo.

For over a year now, rumours of Reliance e-commerce debut had been doing the rounds. The company has also been buying into startups in the sector.

Going by an offline-to-online model, in December Reliance acquired 85% stake in the Hyderabad-based startup Nowfloats for ₹141.63 crores. Nowfloats offers SaaS based solutions to SMEs, and enables their digital presence.

In August 2019, Reliance acquired a majority stake in the Google-backed fashion e-commerce startup Fynd. In March 2019, Reliance had acquired Mumbai-based logistics platform Grab A Grub.

Reliance Retail has made a much bigger promise to build its online business on the back of its 364.3 million Jio subscribers.

See Also:
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail is valued at ₹2.4 lakh crore
Reliance Industries' latest acquisition takes Mukesh Ambani closer to e-commerce launch