Reliance Jiomart: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has started limited test use of WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after Facebook decided to invest USD 5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company.
JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, “has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders” in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report.
“The customer initiates the interaction on WhatsApp, checks out the grocery order on JioMart webpage, gets connected with a retail store on WhatsApp and then customer picks up the order from Kirana and pays in cash,” it said, adding the model is likely on delivery and completion of the transaction on one app.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Industries Ltd. The investment was made to bring the company’s JioMart venture to WhatsApp. The e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail is now live in three neighbourhoods surrounding Mumbai and now they even have access to WhatsApp’s 400 million user base in India.
At the time of the ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the JioMart’s WhatsApp portal will most likely be an instant hit. With such an investor on board, Mukesh Ambani is not far from taking on Amazon and Walmart. While JioMart can leverage this to reach the masses, Facebook hopes this will make WhatsApp the primary method for small businesses to connect with their customers.
How to use JioMart to order grocery on WhatsApp?
JioMart has created a WhatsApp number – 8850008000. The customers will just need to save the number on their phones. Once you add the number, send a simple text on WhatsApp. JioMart’s WhatsApp service will come up with a default reply, “Welcome to JioMart – WhatsApp Order booking Service. We are currently accepting orders only for selected localities in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan. Orders placed by 5 pm every day are likely to be available for pick up at your nearest JioMart Kirana within 48 hours.”
This message will be followed by a custom URL, which users can use to place an order in any of the available localities. Once the customer has successfully placed an order, they will be notified with the order and the store details on WhatsApp.
To register with JioMart, customers have to provide details such as mobile number, area, locality, and society name, according to the message received by customers. JioMart connects customers to nearby kirana stores to fulfil orders locally. “In the very near future, JioMart — Jio’s digital new commerce platform — and WhatsApp will empower nearly 3 crore small Indian kirana shops to digitally transact with every customer in their neighbourhood,” RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a video statement after securing the deal with Facebook, indicating that the deal has retail at its center. The company also looks to extend JioMart services to farmers in the near future. Mukesh Ambani also said that the deal is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of Digital India.
