JioMart has expanded its partnership with WhatsApp, allowing customers to shop using a JioMart business account on the Meta-owned messaging service. Reliance Industries’ online grocery channel, which is funded by the company, may benefit from the move.
At Meta’s Fuel For India event hosted remotely on Wednesday, Akash Ambani, director and head of strategy for Jio Platforms Ltd, and his sister Isha Ambani, director of Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms Ltd, discussed the idea.
They emphasised the importance of continuing to collaborate with WhatsApp to develop native capabilities that will allow consumers to purchase smoothly on WhatsApp while also assisting retailers in boosting stock and improving profits.
In a demo presented by JioMart, buyers in select cities were able to start shopping on WhatsApp by conversing with a JioMart corporate account. Shoppers are then given a “Start Shopping” prompt, as well as a catalogue of food and other everyday things. Orders will be offloaded to the nearest retailer or fulfilled through Reliance Retail’s network of locations.
In a demo presented by JioMart, buyers in select cities were able to start shopping on WhatsApp by conversing with a JioMart corporate account. Shoppers are then given a “Start Shopping” prompt, as well as a catalogue of food and other everyday things. Orders will be offloaded to the nearest retailer or fulfilled through Reliance Retail’s network of locations.
According to Akash Ambani, digital shopping is now simply an extension of JioMart chatting over WhatsApp. “To put it plainly, the JioMart experience via WhatsApp is ‘conversational.'” WhatsApp is a very straightforward and user-friendly application. As a result, when it comes to ordering goods, customers will have no reservations. There are no technical limitations since it is quite intuitive,” he continued.
The combination of JioMart with WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users in India, might raise the stakes in the battle for domination in the country’s online and offline retail trade.
JioMart’s platform is presently used by over half a million tiny mom-and-pop businesses to order goods for their establishments. Mint reported in January that the integration of WhatsApp with JioMart was in the works.
Isha Ambani explained that all a customer has to do is place an order on JioMart.
Bread, butter, vegetables, beverages, and everything else you’ll need for the day or week… Look up a product, set up a subscription for a regular purchase if that’s what you want, or receive personalised recommendations based on your previous purchases; it’s all there,” she said in a video chat conducted by Marne Levine, Meta’s chief business officer.
According to Isha Ambani, the merger brings Jio and JioMart closer to her father, tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s aim of enabling millions of small merchants to become digital-first.
Reliance Retail Ltd’s JioMart is an online shopping channel. In May of 2020, it was officially introduced. Facebook Inc. paid $5.7 billion in April 2020 for a 9.9% share in Reliance Industries’ digital division Jio Platforms.
JioMart works with small businesses to act as a distributor, supplying products to them. It also supports B2C orders from end-users, which are then forwarded to retailers.
The company is aggressively expanding in India, taking on e-commerce behemoths such as Amazon and Walmart Inc.
